Talk:Liz Truss

Featured articleLiz Truss is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
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September 5, 2023Peer reviewReviewed
October 25, 2023Featured article candidatePromoted
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Proposal to include historical ranking context in lead or legacy section

I propose adding a brief mention of Truss's reception by historians and political analysts, either in the lead or in the legacy/premiership section. Specifically:

In a 2023 survey of MPs conducted by Royal Holloway, University of London, Truss was ranked the worst post-war prime minister, placing last among the 16 evaluated.

Alternatively, a more concise version could be considered for the lead at a later stage if scholarly consensus solidifies:

She has been described by political analysts and MPs as one of the worst prime ministers in British history.

This is supported by the peer-reviewed academic article published in The Political Quarterly, titled "The Good, the Not so Good, and Liz Truss: MPs' Evaluations of Postwar Prime Ministers" (2024), which documents a survey of 65 MPs. Truss ranked last, and the framing of the paper itself strongly implies a historic outlier in failure.

While it's early for a fully established scholarly consensus, this source meets WP:RS and WP:WEIGHT for inclusion in the article body. A lead mention could follow once academic rankings such as the University of Leeds/Woodnewton surveys incorporate her into post-war PM league tables (likely in the next cycle). ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 22:47, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No article for a living person stands still and a FA needs kept up to date. However, isn't it too early still to pass final judgement on her as PM until at least one full government term has passed? Moreover, a survey of MPs cannot be taken as a reliable yardstick for measuring how awful (or good 🤔) Truss was Billsmith60 (talk) 11:26, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Tim O'Doherty: any thoughts, Tim? ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 21:33, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Undecided at the moment. I wouldn't say an MPs' survey holds enough weight to be in the lead as an individual point, although (as you mention) academic studies are probably not far off: Seldon has already written a pretty scathing (some might say ridiculously, needlessly spiteful) account of her, which does hold some weight. I might use that instead, and write up a fuller "Reputation" section to go with it. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, has any reviewer described Seldon's book as "spiteful"? I've seen reviews calling it scathing or brutal, but I haven't come across anything suggesting it's needlessly personal or vindictive.
I'm only asking because if we're weighing that book against something like the Royal Holloway survey in terms of reliability, it helps to know how it's been received in reliable sources. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 01:16, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bumping thread. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 23:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of religion?

Why is there no mention of religion in the "Personal details" section? Most heads of state have this listed. I am so confused. Is the UK that secular that no one pays attention to this? Bdavid1111 (talk) 23:27, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked infoboxes for a few other heads of government and couldn't find an entry for religion. Do we do this anywhere? Einsof (talk) 23:52, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to this page, religion as a parameter was removed in 2017, following this discussion. Truthnope (talk) 00:40, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This RfC found that religion should generally not be included in infoboxes on biographies. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:42, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Other prime ministers, see Blair ( here) have their faith in a 'Personal life' section. PääsukeH (talk) 04:01, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personal life

Should Truss not have a 'personal life' section at the bottom detailing her marriage, affair, and children? This would be in line with other prime ministers see here, here, here, here etc. It allows domestic and personal information to be distinct from the political narrative and prevents potential confusion as to where new domestic information may go, such as a divorce, new relationship or religion etc. PääsukeH (talk) 03:56, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those articles are not featured. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 15:37, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean? I think having a 'personal life' section heading would adhere to the bit of featured article criteria: "appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings".
I don't think having a 'personal life' section heading would amount to 'overwhelming'. It might be overwhelming if we had section headings such as: 'Marriage', 'Children', 'Affair', 'Religion', 'Address' etc. but I don't think a general section heading called 'Personal life' including all of that info would be a problem, and would fall under 'substantial', in my view. If in the discourse of her life (which should be geared to the political narrative of her life) there are odd tidbits of personal info, I think that would fail to meet the criteria for "Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail..." Not to imply that her domestic and personal info isn't necessary to the article, but that it strays from the political narrative that the rest of the page, is presumably, trying to aim for.
Plus, other featured articles such Nelson Mandela, Mitt Romney, Alec Douglas-Home, and Mike Jackson (British Army officer) have similar sections titled 'Personal life' or including it, so I don't see the article as being featured as much of a reason.
Also, on a side note, how on earth has Truss reached 'featured article' status and Blair, Cameron, Brown and May, not? Mad. PääsukeH (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Truss reached FA by dint of the great efforts made to get the article to the stage where a number of experienced editors went through it word by word. It has not changed substantially and does not require the significant structural addition you have made Billsmith60 (talk) 11:25, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Bill -- the article's FA status indicates strong consensus that it comprehensively covers the areas it needs to, and that it is arranged in a logical and effective manner. That doesn't mean that no improvements are possible, but it does weigh against a major reorganisation to fix what doesn't appear to be a problem. We certainly shouldn't be rejigging the article just in case Truss does something in the future that is hard to fit in -- we can handle that if/when it becomes an issue. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:44, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a major reorganisation to add one new section heading that other featured articles include, especially when information regarding how and where she met her husband was wrong anyway. The reference to Field where it was important politically should remain in the specific section around 2005, but the rest (general marriage, kids, details of affair, residence etc.) should be a specific section heading (it's only one!) If anything, it's more logical to have all of her domestic info in one place rather than chronologically scattered throughout her political biography. It makes more sense to distinguish the two, as most people who visit Wikipedia either want one or the other in my view. PääsukeH (talk) 16:51, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There were also numerous grammatical errors throughout the article so it can't have been gone through that thoroughly. PääsukeH (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see you're indicting the hardworking FA team for what you consider their lack of thoroughness. That does you no credit. However, if enough people agree with you here about the structure it can be improved Billsmith60 (talk) 17:57, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Numerous other Featured article pages have 'Personal life' section headings PääsukeH (talk) 18:08, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They might, but the consensus at the moment (evident here as much as at FAC) is that the proposed change should not be made, so it should not be reinstated unless that consensus changes. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:18, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just following Wikipedia:Be bold PääsukeH (talk) 18:25, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As UC says, do not make more changes of this type unless a consensus exists here first. Hence I've reverted your last edits Billsmith60 (talk) 08:36, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but you've forgotten the next two steps -- be bold, but be ready for other people to revert your bold edits, and then discuss them before trying to un-revert. You've now reverted two different people despite very clear feedback here and in edit summaries that the changes are not beneficial -- this is just edit warring. UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:26, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the Liz Truss page should have a 'Personal life' section heading Tangost1 (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

yes, agreed. It's clear to me that an article such as this one should have a personal life section, in line with other similar articles, detailing sourced aspects of this prominent individual that aren't directly related to her career. "This article is an FA, therefore you may not add new sections to it" is not in itself a valid reason to revert otherwise-policy-compliant edits. I support retaining PääsukeH's edits, given that no substantive reasons have been given for reverting them.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:46, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

detailing sourced aspects of this prominent individual that aren't directly related to her career -- there's no question around what should be included here; the material is (almost) all already in the article. The question is where and how it should be presented. The problem is, as you say, finding things that aren't directly related to her career. Currently the section reads as follows:

Truss met her future husband, Hugh O'Leary, at the 1997 Conservative Party conference, in Blackpool , and they married in 2000. Beginning in 2004, Truss embarked on an 18-month affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field, which ended shortly after the following year's election. She remained married to O'Leary and they had two daughters: Frances (born 2006) and Liberty (born 2008). They live in a three-bedroom detached house in the market town of Thetford, Norfolk, as well as owning a home in Greenwich, south-east London.

The affair has to be mentioned in the early part of the Career section, because it became extremely important to it, but we now have the bizarre situation where we say that she was having an affair without saying that she was married. We also mention the affair twice in the body, which seems like WP:UNDUEWEIGHT especially given that it's a negative aspect of a living person -- nothing else in the article gets the same treatment, and it's hard to argue that it's twice as important as anything about her politics, positions, career etc. Take out the marriage and affair and we have her children and two houses -- the former is encyclopaedic, but I'm not sure the latter really is, even leaving aside ethical concerns about whether we should be loudly shouting about where controversial politicians live. It's also cited to what was the Evening Standard -- a regional tabloid, which wouldn't normally clear the bar for WP:HQRS (or notability) at FAC (see WP:RSP: it's in yellow, with There is no consensus on the reliability of the Evening Standard, and this discussion, which to me leans "no".).
If this section were to come up as written at FAC, I would advise that it be trimmed down and the relevant details incorporated into the main text -- we shouldn't have a "Personal life" section purely because other articles have one, if there isn't enough encyclopaedic material to merit a standalone section. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:09, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I concede that her address is not important enough to be included.
By definition you have to be married to have an affair, otherwise it would just be an infidelity, and plus her spouse is already named in her infobox (does this not count for anything?) before the relevant sections. I know you'll say 'but it's not in the body of the article' but it's unavoidable when reading the page. It would be better if we just removed the reference to her affair from the 2005 section altogether.
We have the following passage (I don't know how to make it green sorry. How do you make it green??):

"Shortly after her selection, some members of the constituency association objected to Truss' selection because of her failure to declare an affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field. The Mail on Sunday was the first to report on the affair, and party members claimed to have been misled over Truss' "skeleton in the cupboard". A motion was proposed to terminate Truss's candidature; the proponents of Truss' deselection were branded the "Turnip Taliban" by Conservative Party officials and the press, including by the Mail, a reference to stereotypes about Norfolk being a county of farmers. There was also controversy over the fact that Truss was not from Norfolk, with some in the association asking for a local candidate and saying that she had been "parachuted in"."

Why not just have all of the relevant media backlash about her affair in the 'Personal life' section, considering it's about her domestic life, and we don't know how the selection controversy was weighted, and replace the passage with something like or similar to:

"Shortly after her selection, some members of the constituency association objected to Truss' selection because of marital issues (see ~Personal life), as well as a controversy over the fact that Truss was not from Norfolk with some in the association asking for a local candidate and saying that she had been "parachuted in". A motion was proposed to terminate Truss's candidature; the proponents of Truss' deselection were branded the "Turnip Taliban" by Conservative Party officials and the press, including by the Mail, a reference to stereotypes about Norfolk being a county of farmers."

Because all that has been removed is:

"her failure to declare an affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field. The Mail on Sunday was the first to report on the affair, and party members claimed to have been misled over Truss' "skeleton in the cupboard"."

We could then, edit the 'Personal Life' section to read something like or similar to:

"Truss met her future husband, Hugh O'Leary, at the 1997 Conservative Party conference, in Blackpool, and they married in 2000. Beginning in 2004, Truss embarked on an 18-month affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field, which ended shortly after the following year's election and her failure to declare it added to the controversy around her selection to South West Norfolk, leading The Mail on Sunday to report that some party members claimed to have been misled over Truss' "skeleton in the cupboard". She remained married to O'Leary, and they have two daughters: Frances (born 2006) and Liberty (born 2008).

I don't see how "see: Personal Life" would be any different to linking to, for example "Main article: Political positions of Liz Truss" because on the latter account there's already an implication that you're repeating yourself.
Toning down the affair in the main body and leaving it to a 'Personal life' section would decrease the 'negative aspects of a living person' in the main body, in my view. When an affair is mentioned, the first thing anybody wants to know is: 'Did they divorce?' By having all of her marriage details with her affair and children in the same place, it keeps all of her domestic information together. Otherwise those aspects of her risk not being concise, and I think it's more respectful to just say 'marital issues' and then refer to the hard fact of the affair later on - maybe that's too editorial, but if it's sandwiched between her marriage and her children I think it feels less negative.
I don't think it's adding undue weight to her constituency selection because it's just referring back with new information. 'Skeleton in the cupboard' doesn't necessarily refer to the secrecy being solely political. It's not clear that the party members were aggrieved because Truss lied to them, or because she concealed a relationship from her husband, or both. Since the information is directly linked to her affair, which is fundamentally linked to her marriage, I think the controversy is more applicable to her personal life than her political ability. And does 'skeleton in the cupboard' really need a hyperlink anyway?
I don't think the reference back is any different to:

"Sunak went on to further reverse many of the economic measures she had made as prime minister but retained Hunt as chancellor." (Premiership 2022: Government crisis and resignation)

and

"After Truss's dismissal of Kwarteng and Hunt's reversal of many of the mini-budget's economic measures, the BBC's economics editor..." (Political positions: Domestic issues)

PääsukeH (talk) 19:44, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I think this really just shows why a "Personal life" section is not the right way to handle it. The proposed alteration to the section on her candidacy and affair now loses a lot of clarity ("because of marital issues" is so vague as to be misleading), requires us to flag up in the article that we're not really telling the full story (and so reduces accessibility, the likelihood of readers staying engaged, and so on -- we know that keeping readers focused in one place is a good thing, and hence have e.g. MOS:NOFORCELINK), and then requires a lot of that section on "Personal life" to be, in truth, about politics. I propose removing the personal life section and reverting to having the relevant/encyclopaedic parts of this information introduced in chronological order. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:52, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not having all of her domestic information in one place also reduces accessibility and the likelihood of readers not staying engaged. It requires you to read her entire biography to find out how many children she has or when she married, or when in the marriage she had her affair. A lot of people do just view Wikipedia articles, especially biographies, purely for domestic information. I know a lot of Wikipedians have difficulty with and dislike having to make this acknowledgement because it apparently cheapens or makes Wikipedia less 'encyclopedic', but it is true.
Her domestic information, which is actually quite important for somebody in high public office (at least the info that we've agreed is ethical), needs to be readily available. It is not more important than one of the reasons - and we don't know the degree of importance it was relative to other reasons- for a motion against her in a selection for a constituency she not only won, but then went on to be elected for, years before she had entered the political mainstream. Just throwing in a reference to an affair without wider marital context at some point makes no sense. As I've said before, as you read somebody had an affair, most people logically want to know how it affected the marriage, not about how it affected the South West Norfolk local Conservative Association. Yes it's relevant to her political career, but the affair is more important relative to the context of her marriage than anything else, and not addressing how it affected her marriage casts a strange shadow on the rest of the passage about her candidacy.
Perhaps the use of the hyperlink in the passage about her candidacy I suggested is unnecessary, and I suppose we can come up a better phrase than 'marital issues' but when does an affair not count as a marital issue? I wouldn't say it is any more misleading than 'embarking on an affair'. What, in a similar sense to boarding a ship? As if she was starting a voyage on an ocean liner? We don't know how her unfaithfulness was characterised, so it's not out of place to be vague. All we know is she had an intimate relationship with somebody that wasn't her husband. There aren't going to be any sources anywhere that go into more detail than that, if it did it might edge into trivia, so it's fine to be vague there in my view.
Yes, the 'Personal life' section I suggested does have a lot of politics within it but let's just go through it:
"Truss met her future husband, Hugh O'Leary, at the 1997 Conservative Party conference, in Blackpool, and they married in 2000." Non-political references: that she met a man who would be her husband; the name of that man; the year she met him; the context they met under (a conference); the location of that conference; and the year she married him. The only political reference is the type of conference (1997 Conservative). That's 6-1 for non-political vs political.
"Beginning in 2004, Truss embarked on an 18-month affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field, which ended shortly after the following year's election." Non-political references: When her affair began; the length of the affair; the name of the man she had the affair with; and when the affair ended. The only political references are the occupation of the man (Conservative MP); and the context of the time of the end of the affair (after the election). That's 5-2 for non-political vs political.
"and her failure to declare it added to the controversy around her selection to South West Norfolk, leading The Mail on Sunday to report that some party members claimed to have been misled over Truss' "skeleton in the cupboard"." The political references are: That she failed to declare her affair prior to selection for a constituency; the failure of her to declare influenced a controversy around her selection; a Conservative newspaper reported it; party members felt misled over her 'skeleton in a cupboard'. That's 0:4 for non-political vs political.
"She remained married to O'Leary, and they have two daughters: Frances (born 2006) and Liberty (born 2008)." This references that she remained married to her husband after the affair, they subsequently had two daughters, and their daughters' appropriate details. That's 3-0 for non-political vs political.
Overall we have 14-7 for non-political vs political. Two-thirds of information, roughly, in a Prime Minister's 'Personal life' section is non-political. I think that is fine.
Also, many things in the article are out of chronological order for the sake of context and clarity anyway, and some are just plainly wrong. For example:
Under the section heading "Early life and education (1975–1996)" it's stated that "Her parents divorced in 2003" which is then immediately followed by a paragraph starting "In 1977..." In another passage it's stated that she graduated in 1996, and then later on in the same passage it goes on to talk about her views in November 1995.
Under the section heading "Employment and candidatures (1996–2010)" there's a whole passage that starting "In January 2008" about her deputy directorship of a think tank, and then the next paragraphs revert to Shell, 1998-2000 and 2005.
Under the section heading "Environment secretary (2014–2016)" there's a passage that starts: "Following the 2015 general election Truss was reappointed as environment secretary..." which announces her new position. And then the very next paragraph is all about her infamous September 2014 speech about pork markets and imported cheese.
Under the section heading "Post-premiership (2022–present)" there's reference to speech she made in April 2024, then an event she held in October 2024, and then reference to her co-launching the Popular Conservatism group in February 2024, and then it goes on about the July 2024 election.
And the next section titled "Political positions" then reverts back to a video from university in 1994 from 2022 (since when has the time of the source been mentioned in the article?), then to 2021, and then later on explains her opinions on the 2016 EU referendum. It also links to a page titled 'Political Positions of Liz Truss' at the beginning. Isn't that a kind of MOS:NOFORCELINK? Having some of her political positions but not all of them increases the likelihood of people needing to use the link. And how do we decide which positions are on which page?
To say that rearranging the few snippets of domestic information will be less encyclopedic and put the reader off because it's out of chronology... Well, what about the rest of the article? Clearly a lot of things are out of chronology for context's sake. We egregiously ignored chronology for other sections, why not 'Personal life' too? It seems logical to define sections by context, as we already did with the intro, the infobox, the body, and political positions, and then be chronological within them (which hasn't happened anyway). So in this light I don't think adding a 'Personal life' section that technically references things further back in time (e.g marriage in 2000) than things in sections above it (e.g. her premiership) is unreasonable, especially when info is in chronological order within the 'Personal life' section I suggested. PääsukeH (talk) 02:19, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think your walls of text are sufficient for now. Be careful to avoid WP:BLUD. Let others have their say for or against and we'll see what happens Billsmith60 (talk) 11:15, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we should ignore preference for absolute chronology over the entire article and instead strive for chronology within specific section headings, considering the clearly messy existing chronology of the body. A new section for personal life wouldn't be any more misleading than the discrepancies you raised and I don't think what you suggested is too political; it references politics where it has to, and that's probably unavoidable considering who she is. I think her husband and the details of her marriage; her children; and the affair is enough material to merit a new section as user:PääsukeH suggests. Tangost1 (talk) 03:12, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems logical to have one in line with otherprime ministers JohnBomma231 (talk) 06:22, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It may be 'logical' to have one: But isn't this the highest class of article on Wikipedia, and does it require this layout change? I would say not and that this long article does not need to be any longer bigpad (talk) 12:09, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it does. user:PääsukeH's points show that it doesn't really affect the consistency and flow of the body of the article if you rearrange the information. I don't think it's making the article any longer when no new information is being added. If anything, the article feels 'longer' when you haven't concisely arranged all of her non-political information together because previously you will have had to have read all of her article to find it. JohnBomma231 (talk) 15:21, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Days in office

she stepped down on her 49th (fourty ninth) day, not 50th (fifthteeth) as the article says Bilal Mohammed Munir (talk) 21:18, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are incorrect. This subject has been discussed at length here and the wording is correct. Do the maths, cumulatively Billsmith60 (talk) 10:05, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]