Irish Examiner view: Truss needs to hit the ground sprinting to have fighting chance

New premier faces one of the most of challenging inboxes in more than 80 years

Liz Truss during a hustings event in Cheltenham, as part of the campaign to be leader of the Conservative Party and the next prime minister. Picture: Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Barring a collapse of massive proportions — something which would make Devon Loch look like a slight stumble — Mary Elizabeth Truss, “call me Liz”, will be announced as the new prime minister of Britain sometime just after noon today.

Truss, 47, becomes the fourth leader in succession to be a graduate of the “city of dreaming spires” so it was apposite that the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney chose Oxford as their location this weekend — they were attending the British-Irish Association conference — to send guarded messages to the leader with whom they will have to transact over future developments in the North and in particular the re-establishment of devolved government in Stormont.