Video of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss bashing the monarchy as a teenager was unearthed this week as the new British leader had her first audience with Queen Elizabeth II — days before the longtime royal’s death.
“I’m not against any of them personally — I’m against the idea that people can be born to rule,” a young Truss says in a clip from the UK’s ITV News.
“That people, because of the family they’re born into, should be able to be the head of state of our country? I think that’s disgraceful,” she said.
The clip is purportedly from 1994, when Truss, 47, would have been in her late teens.
Truss studied at Oxford University, from which she graduated in 1996. While there, she was politically active and served as president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats.
Following the Queen’s death at 96 on Thursday, Truss took a different tone, calling the longest-reigning monarch in British history “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”
Prime Minister Liz Truss makes a statement outside 10 Downing Street following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Getty Images/Dan Kitwood
Teenage Truss did not believe people should be born into power. Twitter/ITV“Through thick and thin, Queen Elizabeth II provided us with the stability and the strength that we needed,” she said outside 10 Downing St. in London. “She was the very spirit of Great Britain – and that spirit will endure.”
“God save the king,” she added.
Truss, who previously served as foreign minister, on Monday was picked by her ruling right-wing Conservative Party to be the UK’s third female PM, replacing scandal-scarred Boris Johnson.
Queen Elizabeth II and Truss meet at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, days before her death, where the Queen invited Truss to form a government. POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesShe was formally appointed appointed by the Queen during a Tuesday ceremony at the monarch’s Balmoral estate in Scotland.
With Post wires
