So long, or should I say, "so short"? British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced Thursday that she will be stepping down. The Conservative Party leader, 47, lasted 45 days in office.
Truss, now officially the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the British government, announced her resignation after running a campaign on ill-advised tax cuts that she didn't have the funding to provide, and which financial markets immediately picked up on. Her ratings plummeted as she fired the finance minister she hired to do her bidding against warnings from colleagues and replaced him with a new minister who backtracked on everything she has promised to do with cuts.
It's a lesson for politicians everywhere that you can't just run entirely on a platform you will absolutely never be able to deliver on and, in fact, if you try to deliver you could upend your country's economy and walk away a quitter just a few weeks into the job.
Six weeks is a record-short amount of time to be British prime minister. So, inspired by a YouTube live feed of a head of lettuce that outlived Truss' reign, I put together a list of things that lasted longer than on-the-out Truss' leadership of the Tories.
Things that lasted longer than Truss did in office:
►The intro to this list.
►According to the Mayo Clinic, chronic hives, or urticaria, last longer than six weeks. They can also return over months or years, something that Truss is unlikely to do as PM.
►Former President Donald Trump's insistence that he won the 2020 election is still, unbelievably, ongoing.
►The House committee investigation into the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is also ongoing.
►President Joe Biden's attempt to lower gas prices.
►According to a list compiled by our Money team at USA TODAY, onions, peanuts and winter squash all last two months.
►My 5-year-old's insistence that she doesn't want to go to school.
►The Houston Astros-Seattle Mariners game on Saturday felt like it lasted longer than six weeks.
►Anne of Cleves, whose marriage to King Henry the VIII lasted six months before it was annulled.
►New Coke lasted 79 days because no one wanted New Coke; they wanted classic Coca-Cola.
►Quiet quitting.
But Liz Truss outlasted Anthony Scaramucci
Who has PM Truss outlasted? White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, whom Trump kicked out after just 11 days. President William Henry Harrison, who died after 31 days since his 1841 inauguration and served the shortest tenure in U.S. presidential history. She'll always have that.
Carli Pierson, a New York licensed attorney, is an opinion writer and a member of the USA TODAY Editorial Board. Follow her on Twitter: @CarliPiersonEsq
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