Mary Elizabeth Truss, the UK's 56th Prime Minister, was born in Oxford on 26th July 1975 when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister.
She is the daughter of John Truss, Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Leeds, and Priscilla Grasby, a nurse. Her parents, who she once described as being "to the left of Labour", met at Cambridge University.
The family moved to Paisley, Renfrewshire, in Scotland when she was four years old, living there from 1979 to 1985, with Truss attending West Primary School. She then attended Roundhay School in the Roundhay area of Leeds a school which she later claimed had "let down" children.
Aged twelve, she spent a year in Burnaby, British Columbia, where she attended Parkcrest Elementary School while her father taught at Simon Fraser University.
Truss has praised the coherent curriculum, and the Canadian attitude that it was "really good to be top of the class", which she contrasts to her education at Roundhay School.
Truss was remembered by adolescent classmates as a studious girl with "geeky" friends. She reportedly had an interest in social issues such as homelessness.
She read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Merton
College, Oxford, graduating in 1996.
While at Oxford University she was a member of Oxford University Liberal Democrats, before switching allegiance to the Tories upon graduation in 1996.
Truss worked for Shell between 1996 and 2000 and for Cable & Wireless between 2000 and 2005.
After becoming involved in politics, she was elected MP for South West Norfolk in the 2010 General Election, a position she still holds.
Between 2012 and 2014 she served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Childcare and Education in the Coalition Government, Environment Secretary between 2014 and 2016, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor between 2016 and 2017, Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 2017 and 2019 Trade Secretary between 2019 and 2021, Equalities Minister between 2019 and 2022 and Foreign Secretary between 2021 and 2022.
During the EU Referendum she was a Remainer but became a Brexiteer after Britain left the EU on 31st January 2020. As Trade Secretary she negotiated numerous trade deals for Britain.
Truss has championed Britain following Germany's lead in allowing people to have tax-free and less heavily regulated "mini-jobs".
As the daughter of a noted mathematician, Truss has called for mathematics classes to be compulsory for all those on full-time education.
Since 2000 Truss has been married to accountant Hugh O'Leary, finance director at Affinity Global Real Estate. They have two daughters.