After queen, new king and prime minister seek to steady ship of state
Under gray skies, Sean Brunton dips his brush into a pot of white paint in front of a cottage that abuts the courtyard of a 15th-century church. He’s trying to finish the job before it rains. But he takes a moment to reflect on the tumult of the past two weeks, from the arrival of a new prime minister to the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch.
“She had a good innings,” he says, using a cricketing metaphor, of Queen Elizabeth II, who ascended the throne in 1952.
As for Liz Truss, whom the queen appointed as prime minister two days before her death, he’s less sure of her political longevity, given the challenges she and the country face – war in Ukraine, double-digit inflation, surging energy bills, and rolling strikes by public-sector workers.
“It’s a poisoned chalice, whoever gets to be prime minister in this country,” Mr. Brunton says.
Up and down the United Kingdom, as mourning for Queen Elizabeth reached its apex with Monday’s royal funeral, that sense of uncertainty hung heavy. Britain has a new monarch, King Charles III, who can match neither his mother’s popularity nor
