How many female prime ministers the UK has had as Liz Truss becomes new leader

Liz Truss has defeated Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership contest and will become the new prime minister.

A total of 172,437 Tory members were eligible to vote in the contest and there was a turnout of 82 per cent, with Ms Truss securing 81,326 votes and Mr Sunak 60,399.

Ms Truss paid tribute to Boris Johnson in her acceptance speech, saying he was admired “from Kyiv to Carlisle”.

She added: “Thank you for putting your faith in me to lead our great Conservative Party, the greatest political party on Earth.

“I know that our beliefs resonate with the British people: our beliefs in freedom, in the ability to control your own life, in low taxes, in personal responsibility.

“I know that’s why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and as your party leader I intend to deliver what we promised those voters right across our great country.”

Ms Truss will become the country’s third-ever female prime minister.

Who are the previous female PMs?

All three of the UK’s female prime ministers have been Conservatives.

Margaret Thatcher became the first when she was elected in May 1979. She served for 11 years and 208 days, making her the seventh-longest serving prime minister in British history, and longest of the 20th century. She left office in November 1990, meaning her premiership spanned three decades.

Ms Thatcher enjoyed significant popularity from the British public, winning landslide elections in both 1983 and 1987, but is also one of the country’s most divisive leaders.

Biographer Jason Campbell wrote in his book, The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, from Grocer’s Daughter to Prime Minister: “Margaret Thatcher was not merely the first woman and the longest-serving prime minister of modern times, but the most admired, most hated, most idolised and most vilified public figure of the second half of the twentieth century.

“To some she was the saviour of her country who created a vigorous enterprise economy which 20 years later was still outperforming the more regulated economies of the continent. To others, she was a narrow ideologue whose hard-faced policies legitimised greed, deliberately increased inequality and destroyed the nation’s sense of solidarity and civic pride. There is no reconciling these views: yet both are true.”

Ms Thatcher died in 2013, aged 87.

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The second female prime minister was Theresa May, who succeeded David Cameron in July 2016 after he resigned in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union.

Ms May, who had previously served as home secretary, was named Tory leader when her last remaining competitor, Dame Andrea Leadsom, pulled out of the race.

She called a snap general election in April 2017 which turned out to be a disaster for both her and the Tory party, as it lost its parliamentary majority.

Ms May went on to face significant rebellion from within her own party over her Brexit deal, fighting and winning a confidence vote in December 2018.

Her Brexit deal was repeatedly voted down in the House of Commons, and in March 2019 she eventually resigned, to be replaced by Mr Johnson. She remains MP for Maidenhead.

Which other countries have female leaders?

There are currently 31 countries with female presidents or prime ministers.

The longest-serving of these is Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina, who has been prime minister since 2009. She also held the position between 1996 and 2001.

Here are all the current female heads of state and heads of government, and when they assumed office:

• Sheikh Hasina – Bangladesh prime minister (2009)
• Bidya Devi Bhandari – Nepal president (2015)
• Tsai Ing-wen – Taiwan president (2016)
• Ana Brnabić – Serbia prime minister (2017)
• Halimah Yacob – Singapore president (2017)
• Jacinda Ardern – New Zealand prime minister (2017)
• Katrín Jakobsdóttir – Iceland prime minister (2017)
• Paula-Mae Weekes – Trinidad and Tobago president (2018)
• Mia Mottley – Barbados prime minister (2018)
• Sahle-Work Zewde – Ethiopia president (2018)
• Salome Zourabichvili – Georgia president (2018)
• Zuzana Čaputová – Slovakia president (2019)
• Mette Frederiksen – Denmark prime minister (2019)
• Sanna Marin – Finland prime minister (2019)
• Maia Sandu – Moldova president (2020)
• Katerina Sakellaropoulou – Greece president (2020)
• Rose Christiane Raponda – Gabon prime minister (2020)
• Victoire Tomegah Dogbé – Togo prime minister (2020)
• Ingrida Šimonytė – Lithuania prime minister (2020)
• Kaja Kallas – Estonia prime minister (2021)
• Samia Suluhu Hassan – Tanzania president (2021)
• Vjosa Osmani – Kosovo president (2021)
• Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa – Samoa prime minister (2021)
• Natalia Gavrilița – Moldova prime minister (2021)
• Najla Bouden – Tunisia prime minister (2021)
• Sandra Mason – Barbados president (2021)
• Magdalena Andersson – Sweden prime minister (2021)
• Xiomara Castro – Honduras president (2022)
• Katalin Novák – Hungary president (2022)
• Élisabeth Borne – France prime minister (2022)
• Droupadi Murmu – India president (2022)

The United States has notably never had a female president. Hillary Clinton came close to becoming the first in 2016, but was defeated by Donald Trump.

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