On the face of it, Liz Truss’s margin of victory over Rishi Sunak was fairly wholesome.
The UK’s subsequent prime minister defeated her bitter rival by 57 per cent to 43 per cent, or 20,927 votes.
In a two horse, that may be a comfy win. Put it this fashion, it’s a extra complete consequence than Scotland’s choice to remain within the UK (55-45) and the UK’s departure from the EU (52-48).
However sadly for our new PM, it’s not fairly as easy as that.
For a begin, each opinion ballot throughout the 12-week contest put Truss not less than 20 factors forward of Sunak, that means her lead acquired smal the extra Tory members noticed of her.
Then there’s the truth that the final three Tory leaders to really face a contest for the highest job – Iain Duncan Smith, David Cameron and Boris Johnson – all received stronger mandates than Truss from the get together’s rank-and-file.
However much more considerably, fewer than half – round 150 – Tory MPs publicly declared their help for Truss.
That implies that on her first day within the job, Truss will already be going through an uphill battle to persuade her colleagues that she has what it takes to be PM.
And as my colleague Alex Rogers lists right here, that’s earlier than she begins to deal with essentially the most daunting in-tray to face an incoming prime minister since Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
But when there’s one factor Truss’s political profession tells us, it’s that she is a survivor.
Earlier than changing into the MP for South West Norfolk in 2010, she confronted an try to oust her because the Tory candidate over revelations of an affair she had with the then Conservative MP Mark Area.
Truss survived the ordeal, comfortably received the seat and commenced her journey to Quantity 10 in earnest.
She is going to want all of that resolve and extra if she is to make a hit of her time as prime minister.
