Voice of London

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation early Thursday afternoon, after spending only 45 days in office, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.

She will officially remain in the position until her successor is elected, but more importantly, with her short-lived mandate, she also contributed to media history. She lost a race against a head of lettuce.

On October 14, when it became apparent just how unstable Truss’s seat was, the Daily Star started a live stream, in which they asked whether a head of lettuce could last longer than the Prime Minister.

The first day looked like this:

The idea was given by an article in the Economist, in which a very interesting observation was made:  If we look at how much time passed between Truss’s appointment as prime minister and the pound’s collapse due to the tax cut plan presented by her government, and we subtract the days of mourning due to the death of the Queen, we roughly get the lifespan of a lettuce.

During the past few weeks, the live stream has been going on continuously, the lettuce has been dressed up, and its environment also changed.

When Liz Truss announced that she is going to hold a speech soon at Downing Street, the excited viewers could even watch the two locations simultaneously:

Then, when it turned out that the lettuce has won (and the UK will soon have yet another prime minister), a celebration started in the room. The anthem started playing, and the image of Liz Truss got knocked down, leaving the green winner alone in its victory.

The unusual idea of betting a lettuce against a prime minister ended up not only being a huge win for the vegetable, but for the Daily Star as well. After Truss’s resignation, the stream quickly became an internet sensation, and there was no major British newspaper that didn’t write about the unexpected victory.

It didn’t come as a surprise that the Daily Star wanted to celebrate their champion, and they even featured their lettuce’s historic win on the front page of their newspaper:

While the future of Britain’s politics stays uncertain, we can say two things without a doubt: Never has a lettuce achieved such an overwhelming victory against a prime minister before, and it is arguably the best thing that came out of Truss’s 45 days in power.

Images: Daily Star | Words: Andrea Rezman | Subbing: Yana Trup