Shropshire Star

'Maybe a minor Royal': TV presenters unable to recognise Liz Truss at Queen's funeral

She's only been in the job for 13 days, but Liz Truss' tenure as Prime Minister has already involved dealing with something no head of government has had to encounter for 70 years.

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Prime Minister Liz Truss and husband Hugh O'Leary arrive for the Queen's state funeral. Photo: Geoff Pugh/Daily Telegraph/PA Wire.

Winston Churchill was Prime Minister the last time a monarch died in the UK, when King George VI died in 1952.

Yet, two days after meeting the Queen at Balmoral Castle and being invited to form a government on September 6, Ms Truss was given the news doctors were concerned for Her Majesty's health before her death was confirmed later that evening.

Today, as Ms Truss - who became the 15th Prime Minister of the Queen's reign - arrived for the state funeral at Westminster Abbey, most people in the church and watching at home would have recognised her as she made her way in with her husband, Hugh O'Leary.

However, two presenters from Australian broadcaster 'Nine' did not immediately know who she was.

Peter Overton and Tracy Grimshaw made the gaffe of not recognising the Prime Minister, saying: "Who's this?

"Hard to identify, maybe minor Royals. I can't identify them.

"They look like they will be local people. It's hard to see, we're looking at the backs of their heads."

To which someone must have whispered in their ears that it was indeed the Prime Minister Liz Truss.

Liz Truss, top right, was joined at the funeral by her six predecessors - Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major

The presenters added: "I'm just told that was Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister in the distance that we could see."

Ms Truss went onto take part of the funeral ceremony, in which she read 'The Second Lesson' - which was a New Testament reading from the Bible, John 14:1-9.

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