How Liz Truss went on to rise to the challenge of becoming Prime Minister

It was the moment when young Liz Truss became, in her words, “radicalized.”

As a child, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was furious when she was awarded a ‘Junior Air Hostess’ badge with her parents on board a KLM flight, while her three brothers were given ‘Junior Pilot Badges’.

“I just thought, ‘Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do,’ recalls the potential next prime minister.

It was a formative moment in a cosmopolitan childhood she spent in Paisley, Leeds and Canada when her academic father switched teaching positions. John Truss and his wife Priscilla were both left-wing people who took their daughter on CND marches.

After a brief flirtation with the Liberal Democrats, Mrs Truss moved to the right after meeting Conservative students at Oxford University.

Her political journey took her from singing “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out” as a child to addressing the 1997 Tory Party conference with Mrs. Thatcher in the audience. Mrs Truss is pictured here aged 12 for a year at a primary school in Canada, before returning to study at Roundhay complex in Leeds.

A source close to the family said: “Liz had a vibrant, character-building childhood. With three older brothers, she had to fight for everything. It was a very solid lower-middle-class upbringing, with lots of friends getting free school meals. It was a warm and supportive environment to grow up in.’

Mrs. Truss cites the flight attendant’s moment when she talks about what she calls the “cult of female exceptionalism.” She once said, “Mrs Thatcher did not consider women the equal of men, but their superior…

“Well, I don’t normally disagree with Mrs Thatcher, but I do this time. Because I think it’s very important that we reject the idea that women are superior… or better bosses.

“I hate it as much as the cult of masculine exceptionalism: the idea that men are more decisive, mentally stronger or better leaders.”