Liz Truss: Who is the next prime minister married to?

Throughout the leadership campaign Liz Truss’s husband Hugh O’Leary has kept very much in the background.

However, when his wife becomes prime minister, he will have to get used to spending more time in the limelight.

In that respect he has something in common with another prime ministerial spouse – Philip May, who also kept a low profile.

He spent part of his childhood in Heswall, a town in Wirral, and speaking to The Times, a former neighbour of the family remembered him as “very earnest and very quiet but a lovely boy”.

For university, Mr O’Leary left the North West to study mathematical economics at the London School of Economics, after which he became an accountant.

His mathematical mind may well have been what attracted Ms Truss, who is said to be passionate about the subject.

The pair met at the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool in 1997 – a bleak period for the party recovering from an electoral battering, but a happier time for the young couple.

The accident didn’t put him off and they were married three years later. The couple have two teenage daughters.

Like his wife, Mr O’Leary was keen to get involved in politics and stood in 1998, 2002 and 2006, to be a councillor in Greenwich, south London.

However, unlike his wife who became a councillor for Eltham South in 2006, he was unsuccessful.

That same year, the couple went through a tricky period when details of an affair between Ms Truss and her fellow Conservative Mark Field came to light.

This later led to an attempt by local party members to oust her when she was selected as the candidate for the South West Norfolk constituency.

At the time, Ms Truss said: “I am really sorry about that [affair]. It’s a mistake I made and as far as me and my husband are concerned it’s water under the bridge.”

Reflecting on the incident in 2019, she said: “It was a baptism of fire.

“It was difficult but… I was so determined to stay selected and I wasn’t going to let… you know, I worked really, really hard and I won that selection fair and square.

“And, actually, even though it was a really unpleasant thing to go through, it made me stronger afterwards because I had to have that fight.”

Asked if it made her marriage stronger she replied: “I think that’s a separate thing. But I am really happily married.”

Ms Truss is a keen Instagrammer but mostly prefers to keep her partner out of her social media posts.

In one exception in 2019, Ms Truss posted a picture of herself with her husband on Instagram at Blagdon Hall in Northumberland with the caption: “Love of my life. #happyvalentinesday”