Liz Truss will face Rishi Sunak for the Tory leadership crown as the pair battle it out for the votes of party members.
There was no love lost between Truss and Sunak in the two early TV debates, so much so that other appearances were cancelled to avoid the “blue on blue” bloodshed that is already being fired back at the Tories by Labour.
Her strengths and weaknesses will be on show over the next six weeks to Tory members and the public but right now she is the favourite to replace Boris Johnson.
So, as a potential Prime Minister it is time to get to know Liz Truss a bit better.
What is her Scottish connection?
Born in Oxford in 1975 to parents she describes as “left-wing”, Truss moved to Paisley at the age of four when her father became a lecturer at the local college.
Living not far from the Faslane nuclear submarine base, Truss’s mother, a nurse and a teacher, took her to marches for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s and to the peace camp set up close to the base.
Talking to the BBC’s Nick Robinson about the experience she recalled shouting the famous anti-Thatcher slogans of the time.
Speaking in her now Yorkshire accent, she told Robinson: “It was in Scottish so it was ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, oot, oot, oot.”
READ MORE: Liz Truss struggles with Scottish supporters
She's a long way from Paisley now?
The family upped sticks to Leeds, where Truss attended the Roundhay state secondary school before studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.
There she became active in student politics, first with the Liberal Democrats. Some footage has been uncovered of her as a self-declared anti-monarchist student but she soon changed course.
As a student at Oxford University she was president of its Liberal Democrat club. It was only in 1998 that she joined the Conservatives.
Years later she explained to Robinson: “I think it was fair to say that, when I was in my youth, I was a professional controversialist and I liked exploring ideas and stirring things up.’
She has changed a lot then?
Truss has been on a big political journey. Having marched in her youth to demand Margaret Thatcher be sacked, she now models her Iron Lady image on the former Tory leader, never missing an opportunity to sit on an army tank or pose next to a Union Jack.
Her tax cutting agenda and her support for Brexit, even though she campaigned for Remain in 2016, cast her as the heir to Thatcher’s throne.
Wait a minute, she was a Remainer?
She shifted from arguing to stay in the EU at the 2016 referendum to become a strong defender of the decision to leave.
She became a Trade Minister who promised to fight for the right of British consumers to eat more British cheese in a frankly bizarre speech to the Tory conference now widely ridiculed.
She appeared outraged that British people weren’t eating enough British cheese as she said: “At the moment, we import two-thirds of all of our apples, we import nine-tenths of all of our pears, we import two-thirds of our cheese.
“That. Is. A. Disgrace.”
This is a good moment to recall the Liz Truss cheese speech
https://t.co/1nbt0WDxZS— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB)
It didn’t stop her political career
Truss was appointed Foreign Secretary in September after Dominic Raab was moved off his sun lounger in the wake of his handling of the Afghanistan crisis.
She took a tough stance in talks with the EU and angered Brussels with legislation that threatened to potentially break international law over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
But she blundered by endorsing calls for British citizens to go and join the Ukrainian resistance in fighting against Russia, comments she later had to row back from.
Will she make it to Downing St?
Married with two daughters, Truss is the bookies’ favourite right now.
Although colleagues described her as a “human hand grenade” - likely to go off at any moment - her tax-cutting message looks like winning favour with the Tory membership.
How she goes down in Paisley is another question. On the SNP demand for an IndyRef2, Truss said the last vote in 2014 was “a once in a generation referendum and we’re now in 2022. That is not a generation ago”.
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