Truss, who has led rival Rishi Sunak in polls of Tory members to take over from scandal-hit Boris Johnson, claims to embody the values of Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister.

Truss would be the third woman to lead at Number 10 Downing Street.

“She’s ‘ambition personified’ and an ideologue at the same time, and it’s an explosive combination,” Christopher Painter, an emeritus professor in public policy and management at the University of Birmingham, said of Truss.

“The ideology is leading her down a path that is totally inappropriate for the dire situation the country is facing.”

Sunak vs Truss: is race a factor in the UK leadership race?

Thatcher, who died in 2013 at 87, featured heavily in Truss’ image-building long before Johnson was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of missteps and scandals.

In February, during a diplomatic visit to Moscow before Russia invaded Ukraine, Truss wore a Cossack style fur hat, just like Thatcher did on a visit to the Kremlin some 35 years earlier.

Months earlier in 2021, Truss channelled Thatcher when she was photographed in a tank, echoing a famous photo of Thatcher in 1986.

More recently in televised hustings of the leadership race, Truss gave another nod to Thatcher’s dress style by wearing a pussy-bow blouse.

Thatcher was a scientist by training. Truss, like her rival in the leadership race, former chancellor Sunak, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

She initially joined the centrist Liberal Democrats before jumping ship to the right-wing Conservative Party, the first of a number of political volte-faces for which she has been criticised.

In 2000, Truss married Hugh O’Leary, an accountant. They have two daughters.

Truss worked briefly for the private sector before heading up the Reform think tank. She was a party activist for 14 years before becoming an MP in 2010.

Her selection as candidate for the South West Norfolk constituency faced stiff local opposition after it emerged she had an affair with married Conservative MP Mark Field.

Still, Truss was selected and her marriage to O’Leary survived. Field’s own marriage did not.

03:45

Boris Johnson’s rise to power and what led to his downfall as UK prime minister

Boris Johnson’s rise to power and what led to his downfall as UK prime minister

In 2012, Truss co-authored the controversial “Britannia Unchained” political thesis, which argued for radical economic reforms and a reduction of employment laws.

Since entering parliament, she served in a number of ministerial positions, starting as undersecretary of state for childhood and education. She once championed Chinese Confucius Institutes in the UK, but not now.

Truss was secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs before the European Union referendum, when she was a supporter of Britain Stronger in Europe, which campaigned in favour of the UK’s continued membership of the EU.

Ignorance is bliss for Liz Truss when demonising others

When the Leave campaign won, she became a Brexit supporter.

She has been secretary of state for justice and the first ever woman to serve as lord chancellor under Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May.

After May resigned in 2019, Truss backed Johnson for leader. He rewarded her by making her trade secretary and then foreign secretary.

“I honestly believe she was given jobs – ministerial promotions – just to shut her up,” Anna Soubry, a former MP who has worked closely with Truss when they were both ministers, said in July. “Her ambition is, undoubtedly, considerably greater than her ability.”

If Truss gets the top job on Monday, she will have in-tray with numerous priorities. Domestically, the UK is facing its worst economic crisis in 40 years with soaring inflation and a looming recession. The country is also being hammered by strikes and failing public services.

“Truss has expressed a desire to end the economic orthodoxy that has held down Britain’s potential; to reduce taxes and cut red tape that is holding back the economy,” said Matthew Lesh, head of public policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank.

He said Truss can be credited with deals to roll over dozens of EU agreements, signing updated trade deals with Japan and Canada, a brand-new deal with Australia, as well as beginning negotiations with New Zealand and applying to join the 11-country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Critics say Truss’ blunt style and willingness to play to her cheerleaders is dangerous and threatens to isolate the UK.

Over the past week, Truss has taken aim at both France and China. On France, she said the “jury was still out” on whether it was “a friendly nation”.

Boris Johnson tops list of bad British PMs in poll of UK public

Truss has also made snipes about regional leaders. She said Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon was an attention seeker and was “best ignored”, and called Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford a “low energy version of Jeremy Corbyn”, referring to the former leader of the opposition Labour Party.

At the final leadership hustings in London this week, she accused the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan of being “anti-everything” and “letting down” the UK capital. As prime minister she will have to work with all three leaders.

Perhaps the biggest threat to Truss’ leadership will come from enemies within the ranks of the still bitterly divided Conservative Party.

“Far from tax cuts that will benefit the better off, what’s needed now is a state more hands on, interventionist and protective,” Painter said.

“Is it the case she will perform a massive U-turn within weeks? That would be unthinkable. Although she has changed her spots in the past, it would destroy her premiership overnight.”

Voting in the Tory leadership contest was closing on Friday and the winner will be announced on Monday.

On Tuesday, Johnson and his successor will go to Balmoral for the appointment of the new prime minister, rather than Buckingham Palace.

Additional reporting by dpa