Queen’s death both challenge and reprieve for new UK leader
Associated PressLONDON — British Prime Minister Liz Truss took office less than two weeks ago, impatient to set her stamp on government and facing an overflowing inbox of crises: soaring inflation, a plummeting national currency and skyrocketing energy bills. “The one thing prime minister most lacks is time to think.” Truss won a Conservative Party leadership contest on Sept. 5 and was appointed prime minister by the queen at Balmoral Castle the next day, in one of Elizabeth’s final acts. “The fact that so many leaders from around the world … are flooding to London gives the new prime minister ample time for soft diplomacy, those quiet conversations before and after the funeral, which will help her achieve her objective -- if it is achievable -- of ‘global Britain,’” Seldon said. British Unionist politicians are refusing to form a power-sharing government with Irish nationalists, saying the Brexit border checks undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K. Johnson’s government announced plans to suspend the checks and rip up part of its Brexit treaty with the EU — a move that angered the bloc and alarmed Washington. “We’re beginning to see … the signs of what the new economics of Liz Truss is all about,” opposition Labour Party lawmaker Margaret Hodge told the BBC.