Truss enjoys one of quickest journeys from MP to PM

Liz Truss has had one of the quickest journeys in modern political history from starting as an MP to becoming prime minister.

She first entered Parliament at the 2010 general election, when she won the seat of South West Norfolk with 48% of the vote.

She held the seat at the 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections, increasing her share of the vote on each occasion.

At the 2019 election she polled 69% of the vote, well ahead of her Labour rival, who finished second on just 18%.

It has taken Ms Truss just 12 years to go from being a new MP to becoming the new prime minister.

Only three other politicians in modern times have made the same journey in a shorter period, all of them Conservatives: Boris Johnson and John Major, both of whom took 11 years, and David Cameron, who needed just nine years.

Tony Blair took 14 years from becoming an MP in 1983 to entering Downing Street in 1997.

Other prime ministers have typically needed around two decades or more to climb to the top.

Theresa May and Harold Wilson both took 19 years, while Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher took 20.

Gordon Brown had to wait much longer than many of his contemporaries, with a total of 24 years between his debut as an MP in 1983 and the start of his premiership in 2007.

But even this was not quite as long a wait as that experienced by Jim Callaghan, who took 31 years from starting as an MP in 1945 to becoming Labour prime minister in 1976.