Liz Truss has revealed that she thought “Why me, why now?” when she learnt that the Queen had died – just two days after she had been sworn in as prime minister.
In her new book, Ten Years to Save the West, Ms Truss admits that she went into “a state of shock” when told of the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
Of their historic meeting at Balmoral in Scotland, which occurred just two days before the monarch’s death, Ms Truss says the 96-year-old Queen “seemed to have grown frailer” since she had last been in the public eye.
However, Ms Truss wrote, in an excerpt published in the Daily Mail, that there “simply wasn’t any sense that the end would come as quickly as it did”.
The memoir details how the “machine kicked into action” when word reached No 10 that the Queen would not be able to join via video link, as had been planned, for the formal swearing in of new ministers.
“My black mourning dress was fetched from my house in Greenwich, south London,” Ms Truss wrote. “Frantic phone calls took place with Buckingham Palace. I started to think about what on earth I was going to say if the unthinkable happened.
“On Thursday, we received the solemn news that the Queen had died peacefully at Balmoral. To be told this on only my second full day as Prime Minister felt utterly unreal. In a state of shock, I found myself thinking: ‘Why me, why now?’”
In the book, she shares details of her second and final meeting with Queen Elizabeth. The meeting produced the last public photograph of the late Queen before she died on 8 September 2022 at her Scottish residence.
The Queen was pictured using a walking stick and smiling warmly as she greeted Ms Truss in front of an open fire in her sitting room.
Ms Truss wrote: “That Tuesday, September 6, 2022, she was standing up as she greeted me in her drawing room. I was told she’d made a special effort to do so but she gave no hint of discomfort throughout our discussion.
“This was only my second one-on-one audience with her. On the previous occasion, after I’d been removed from a different job in the government, she’d remarked that being a woman in politics was tough.
“For about 20 minutes, we discussed politics – and it was clear she was completely attuned to everything that was happening, as well as being typically sharp and witty. There simply wasn’t any sense that the end would come as quickly as it did.”
Ms Truss, whose tenure in Downing Street lasted just 49 days after her disastrous mini-Budget unleashed economic chaos, also revealed that the late Queen told her to “pace yourself”.
“Maybe I should have listened,” the former PM said.
But Ms Truss, who is the MP for South West Norfolk, defended her approach in her memoir, suggesting that the “pro-Remain” Treasury, Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility were “barriers to our plans”.