Hugh O’Leary, husband of Liz Truss for 22 years, was at her side on Monday when the Conservative Party recorded its victory, then again on Tuesday, accompanying his wife for her entry into Downing Street.
At 48, this chartered accountant, a graduate of the London School of Economics, is a reputedly discreet man, who “could walk down the street without being recognized, even in Downing Street”, recently mocked the daily The Mirror.
He thus stayed away from his wife’s campaign this summer, despite his long-standing political involvement with the Conservatives – he and Liz Truss met in 1997 at the party’s annual convention. “He doesn’t want to have a major public role,” Ms Truss told the Telegraph at the start of the campaign.
Observers often compare him to the husband of former Prime Minister Theresa May, who had chosen to keep a low profile, unlike Carrie Johnson, the wife of the outgoing Prime Minister.
According to the daily The Guardian, he would prefer “to take care of domestic activities during the week, while his wife is busy at Westminster”.
“When I need a late discussion on supply policy reform or econometrics, I always have someone on hand,” Liz Truss, however, was quoted by The Mirror as saying.
Hugh O’Leary, who works as CFO of a property company, could continue to work from the couple’s home in south-east London or find an office near Westminster, The Guardian understands , quoting a friend of his.
Like his wife, whose extramarital relationship with a married Conservative parliamentarian revealed in 2006 almost cost him his election as an MP three years later, he had desires to enter politics in the early 2000s but without succeeding in getting elect.
The couple have two daughters, 16-year-old Frances and 13-year-old Liberty, according to birthday cake photos their mother posted on Instagram, who are also moving to Downing Street. After Boris Johnson’s babies born while he was Prime Minister, or David Cameron’s young children, they are the first teenage girls to live there since the children of former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair 25 years ago.
– “Very excited” –
Like the two daughters of former US President Barack Obama, Malia and Sasha, in the United States, they are preparing to become among the teenagers most scrutinized by the British media.
According to The Guardian, they are “very excited” to move to No 10 or No 11, a more spacious apartment preferred by many Prime Ministers for their private apartments, whose back door opens directly on St James’s Park.
“They have already planned sleepovers with their friends in Downing Street and at Checkers (the Prime Minister’s country residence), with its huge garden and heated swimming pool,” the newspaper said.
Frances participated in her mother’s campaign, in the digital team. “Frances may be a little more centrist and Liberty a little more conservative, but they both encourage me a lot,” Liz Truss told The Times during the campaign, adding that she talks to them “politics all the time.”
“I am very open with my daughters. I think it’s the only way to act because it’s a life with a lot of pressure,” added the now Prime Minister, who is however very protective of her private life.
Few photos of her daughters exist, except for a few posted by their mother on Instagram, including one in 2019 showing them from behind walking in a park.
It is not certain that such discretion is still possible now that the family has moved to Downing Street.
In the past Euan Blair, son of Tony Blair, had made headlines, photographed dead drunk at 16 in central London, embarrassing his Prime Minister father.
