Liz Truss's husband Hugh O'Leary by her side as she wins Tory race
Out of the shadows and into the spotlight: Liz Truss’s accountant husband Hugh O’Leary – who ‘cooks a good curry’ – is by her side as she wins the Tory leadership and prepares for life in Downing Street as the UK’s new prime minister
- Hugh O’Leary was at the announcement in Westminster today when Truss won
- It was the first high-profile joint appearance by a hitherto private couple
- They married in 2000 and have two teenage daughters, Frances and Liberty
Liz Truss’s husband was by her side as she wont her Tory leadership today and prepares to become the new UK prime minister.
Hugh O’Leary was at the announcement in Westminster today, the first high-profile joint appearance by a hitherto private couple.
The suited-and-booted chartered accountant, 48, provided moral support as she saw off Rishi Sunak to win the keys to Downing Street.
They married in 2000 and have two teenage daughters, Frances and Liberty. Until now they enjoyed a very private marriage that will now be thrust centrally into the spotlight due to her new job.
She described her ‘dry-witted’ spouse as the ‘love of my life’ on Valentine’s Day three years ago. Raised in Merseyside, O’Leary, 48, became a chartered accountant after studying econometrics and mathematical economics at the London School of Economics (LSE).
They met at the Tory Party Conference in 1997 and said of their first date: ‘I invited him ice skating and he sprained his ankle.’
They married three years later, settling in Greenwich, South-East London and O’Leary has worked from home as a house husband.
A close family friend, cookery writer Mallika Basu, said: ‘They are a great team. Both are keen cooks and very good cooks. She does lovely roasts, he does a good curry.’
Hugh O’Leary accompanied his wife as she was confirmed as the new Tory leader and PM-in -waiting in Westminster today, the first high-profile joint appearance by a hitherto private couple
The suited-and-booted chartered accountant, 48, provided moral support as she saw off Rishi Sunak to win the keys to Downing Street
Liz Truss met Hugh O’Leary at the Tory Party Conference in 1997 and said of their first date: ‘I invited him ice skating and he sprained his ankle’
They started dating and married three years later, settling in Greenwich, South-East London.
They have two daughters, Frances and Liberty, and O’Leary has worked from home as a house-husband.
A close family friend, cookery writer Mallika Basu, said: ‘They are a great team. Both are keen cooks and very good cooks. She does lovely roasts, he does a good curry.’
Only once has their relationship been rocked. In 2006, it was revealed Truss had been having an affair with married Tory MP Mark Field. Her marriage survived; his ended.
The only damaging moment came when Tory members in her Norfolk constituency complained they had been kept in the dark about the affair and tried to oust her.
But they were defeated and Truss triumphed.
‘I remember when the tabloid furore was roaring … both times, her friends locally rallied around,’ a source told The Times.
‘There were a number of occasions when the two of them came to various parties and it was quite good to see that people were sympathising and rallying round, particularly when it was over her selection in 2009. It was extremely unfair the way that came up.
‘I don’t really know much about what went on but from my impression, they [O’Leary and Truss] have always been a really strong couple and I have never seen any real sign that it’s had much of an impact.’
The couple enjoy a very private marriage that would be thrust more centrally into the spotlight if she were to enter No10.
It comes after it was reported that Truss’ left-wing academic father was apparently ‘so saddened’ at her metamorphosis from an anti-monarchist Lib Dem to a Tory that he finds it difficult to talk about it, according to reports.
Truss’ (left, at a Lib Dem conference) left wing father is revealed to be so ‘sad’ at her politics that he finds it difficult to talk about it, reports say. A former neighbour of the academic John Truss (right), an emeritus professor of pure mathematics, claims he is ‘sometimes furious’ at her being a Conservative leadership candidate
A former neighbour of maths professor John Truss claims he was ‘sometimes furious’ and could ‘barely bring himself to speak about’ her being a Conservative candidate when she first stood in 2005.
His college, the University of Leeds, has also reportedly banned his colleagues from speaking about Truss as well, The Times reports.
Truss has been quite open about her left wing background, revealing how she went on Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) marches.
The woman touted to be the third female PM after fellow Conservative leaders, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, recalls they would also chant ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out’ while being at marches in front of the Faslane nuclear submarine base while she lived in Scotland.
Truss has also recently said she regrets making comments about abolishing the Monarchy.
Truss, Britain’s Foreign Secretary and a contender to become the country’s next Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party, pictured as she answers questions as she takes part in a Conservative Party Hustings event at Wembley Arena, in London
Truss (right) spent a cosmopolitan childhood in Paisley, Leeds and Canada, as her academic father moved between teaching posts. John Truss and his wife Priscilla, were both Left-wingers who took their daughter on CND marches (pictured with a CND banner)
At the Tory conference in 1997. After a brief flirtation with the Liberal Democrats, Truss moved to the Right after encountering Conservative students at Oxford University
The former neighbour also said that Truss’ mother, nurse and teacher, Priscilla – who he spoke to before she was selected as a Tory candidate in 2005 – is backing her daughter.
From child of radicals to the door of No 10… How Liz Truss was set on the path to challenge to be Prime Minister
By Glen Owen for the Mail on Sunday
It was the moment when the young Liz Truss became, in her words, ‘radicalised’.
As a child, the Foreign Secretary was infuriated to be presented with a ‘Junior Air Hostess’ badge when she boarded a KLM flight with her parents – while her three brothers received ‘Junior Pilot Badges’.
‘I just thought, “Don’t tell me what I can do or what I can’t do”,’ the potential next Prime Minister recalls.
It was a formative moment in a cosmopolitan childhood spent in Paisley, Leeds and Canada, as her academic father moved between teaching posts. John Truss and his wife Priscilla, were both Left-wingers who took their daughter on CND marches.
After a brief flirtation with the Liberal Democrats, Ms Truss moved to the Right after encountering Conservative students at Oxford University.
Her political journey took her from chanting ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out’ as a child to addressing the Tory Party conference in 1997 with Mrs Thatcher in the audience. Ms Truss is pictured here aged 12 during a year at an elementary school in Canada, before returning to study at Roundhay comprehensive in Leeds.
A source close to the family said: ‘Liz had a vibrant, character-forming childhood. With three older brothers, she had to fight for everything. It was a very solid, lower middle-class upbringing, with loads of friends on free school meals. It was a warm and supportive environment to grow up in.’
Ms Truss cites the ‘air hostess’ moment when she discusses what she calls the ‘cult of female exceptionalism’. She once said: ‘Mrs Thatcher did not consider women to be the equal of men, but their superior…
‘Well, I don’t normally disagree with Mrs Thatcher but I do on this occasion. Because I think it’s very important that we reject the idea that women are superior…. or make better bosses.
‘I think it’s just as bad as the cult of male exceptionalism: the idea that men are more decisive, mentally stronger or better leaders.’
‘She said she was quite torn. She’d agonised over whether to support her because she was her daughter, or not to support her because she was a Tory,’ he told The Times. ‘In the end, she decided that family ties should win out.’
In July, the Daily Express also alleged that the Foreign Secretary’s relationship with her father has been impacted by her ‘conversion to extreme right-wing politics’ and he is really ‘appalled’ by it, a colleague said.
Another university source said: ‘John is distraught at the policies his daughter is advocating in her bid to become PM.’
But Truss has repeatedly disavowed her former left wing views and called a speech she gave advocating for the abolition of the Monarchy a ‘mistake’ after a clip resurfaced of her at the Lib Dem conference in 1994.
The Conservative leadership candidate told reporters in Peterborough in July that she regretted the remarks which took aim at the Royal Family ‘almost immediately’ after she made them when she was 19.
In a clip unearthed, by Newsnight after she was announced in the final two candidates to be PM along with Rishi Sunak, the politician was recorded speaking about how she surveyed a ‘reactionary-looking’ trio of voters who told her that they had had ‘enough’ of the Royal Family.
The Foreign Secretary who used to be the leader of Oxford University’s Liberal Democrats has recently said she now understands that the Queen and the rest of the Royals are ‘key’ to the success of the UK.
She became a Conservative in 1996, and today Truss lengthened her lead over Rishi Sunak in the race to become the new Tory leader and the Prime Minster after Boris Johnson stepped down.
In the clip shared by Newsnight, Truss told the conference: ‘We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all.
‘I was being interviewed by Newsnight earlier this afternoon and we were filmed asking members of the public what they thought about the Monarchy.
‘We came across a group of three people. I’d say they were around 50, 60 [years of age]. [They] looked fairly middle class, rather smart and in fact rather reactionary to be perfectly frank.
‘We asked them they’re opinion of the Monarch, do you know what they said? They said: ‘Abolish them. We’ve had enough’.’
She also went on to say during the same speech that she agreed with former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown on the Monarchy.
‘I agree with Paddy Ashdown when he said: ‘Everybody in Britain should have the chance to be a somebody,’ she said in Brighton.
‘But only one family can provide the head of the state. We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all. We do not believe people are born to rule.
‘We believe in referenda on major constitutional issues; we do not believe people should be born to rule, or that they should put up and shut up about decisions which affect their everyday lives.’
Truss is pictured here aged 12 during a year at an elementary school in Canada, before returning to study at Roundhay comprehensive in Leeds
Truss, pictured in the House of Parliament after she saw off Penny Mordaunt to make the final two in the Tory leadership contest
Truss was seen speaking about how she surveyed a ‘reactionary-looking’ trio of voters who told her that they had had ‘enough’ of the Royal Family
Wearing a crown at 12 in Canada. As a child, the Foreign Secretary was infuriated to be presented with a ‘Junior Air Hostess’ badge when she boarded a KLM flight with her parents – while her three brothers received ‘Junior Pilot Badges’
Asked when she realised she did not want to scrap the monarchy, she told reporters in Peterborough in July: ‘Almost immediately after I’d made that speech.
‘I was a teenager at the time and I do believe that people who never change their mind on anything and think the same at 16 as they do at 46 are, well, first of all they’re not normal people like I am, and secondly, you know,
‘I’ve got the ability to learn from mistakes I’ve made, things that I’ve done that are wrong and move on.’
Truss is now also seen to be on the right of the party. ‘Under my leadership, I would start cutting taxes from day one to take immediate action to help people deal with the cost of living,’ she has said.
Source: Read Full Article