24 of the funniest memes and jokes about Liz Truss becoming Tory leader

Liz Truss has won the Tory leadership contest and therefore is our next prime minister.

The former foreign secretary beat her rival Rishi Sunak, winning 81,326 votes to his 60,399.

She was expected to get more of the vote, but it was still a decisive win and speaking after the result, Truss said she would "deliver" over the next two years, subtly putting to bed rumours that there could be a snap election.

"I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy," she said.

"I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long term issues we have on energy supply.

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"And I will deliver on the National Health Service

"But we all will deliver for our country. And I will make sure that we use all the fantastic talents of the Conservative party, our brilliant members of parliament and peers, our fantastic counsellors, our MSs, our MSPs, all of our councillors and activists and members right across our country. Because, my friends, I know that we will deliver, we will deliver and we will deliver."

She also paid tribute to her predecessor, Boris Johnson, for some reason:

"Boris, you got Brexit done. You crushed Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the vaccine. And you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You were admired from Kyiv to Carlisle," she said as the audience paused before applauding.

So that's that, then. Truss is the PM. Here's how people are reacting:

Carer charity Carers Trust’s CEO Kirsty McHugh said Truss must financially support family carers

“There’s a real political opportunity for the new Prime Minister to come up with an urgent crisis and support plan for unpaid carers that would have two major benefits. It would reduce the risk of large numbers of exhausted unpaid carers being unable to continue their caring role and piling pressure back on to our over-stretched health and social care services. It would also alleviate some of the financial pressures affecting millions of people whose caring roles have made them especially vulnerable to the cost-of-living crisis," she said.

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said:

“Leaving the country rudderless all summer at a time of great emergency has been nothing short of a national disgrace.

“The government has got to get back to governing immediately. Liz Truss must do what should’ve happened months ago and deliver help to the millions unable to cope with their crushing bills.

“Many family finances may never recover without an urgent assistance plan. Tackling the cost-of-living crisis must be the Prime Minister's number one priority, not wasting precious time attacking unions for trying to help working people through the pain.

“Hard on the heels of an energy lifeline must be an above-inflation wage rise for the public services currently haemorrhaging staff to better-paying parts of the economy. If there's no-one left to run the hospitals, schools, town halls, police stations and care homes communities rely on, we'll all be done for.

"Cutting taxes only assists the better-off. It won't help the hospital porters, teaching assistants, care staff or other low-paid workers one bit."

“The new leader also must do what Boris Johnson promised and failed to do - fix the broken social care system once and for all.”

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