LONDON — Liz Truss, newly anointed by Queen Elizabeth II as Britain’s prime minister, arrived at a rain-swept Downing Street on Tuesday, promising action this week on energy bills to help Britons “ride out the storm,” and filling out a cabinet that rewarded her loyalists in the contest to replace Boris Johnson.

Speaking under dark clouds minutes after a thundershower drenched onlookers, Ms. Truss leaned on the weather as a metaphor for the economic challenges facing Britain. But she offered no fresh details on how the government planned to help people cope with soaring inflation and runaway costs.

“As strong as this storm may be, I know the British people are stronger,” Ms. Truss declared in a brief inaugural speech to the nation. “We have what it takes to tackle those challenges. Of course, it won’t be easy. But we can do it. We will transform Britain into an aspiration nation.”

With some experts warning that millions of Britons could face destitution from energy bills that could jump 80 percent in October and spike again in January, Ms. Truss is widely expected to authorize a massive state intervention in the energy markets. Those details, which could include capping energy prices at a cost to the government of $100 billion or more, will presumably be rolled out in the coming days.For now, Ms. Truss was content to recite her upbeat campaign platform, with its free-market promises to cut taxes, to “reward hard work” and to roll back regulations to make Britain a place for “business-led growth and investment.”It was a day of solemn ceremony suffused with a sense of mounting emergency, as Ms. Truss, 47, officially replaced Mr. Johnson to become Britain’s fourth prime minister in the last six years. She then plunged almost immediately into dealing with the country’s gravest economic crisis in a generation.

By evening, Ms. Truss was filling out her cabinet, rewarding supporters and passing over those who backed her opponent, Rishi Sunak, in the leadership contest. After a campaign distinguished by the ethnic and gender diversity of its candidates, Ms. Truss gave the three most prestigious cabinet posts to nonwhite ministers. Kwasi Kwarteng, whose parents immigrated to Britain from Ghana in the 1960s, was named chancellor of the Exchequer, the second-most powerful post in the government. Suella Braverman, whose parents are of Indian origin, was named home secretary, and James Cleverly, whose father is British and whose mother is from Sierra Leone, was appointed foreign secretary, Ms. Truss’s old job.  

Britain also has its first female deputy prime minister, Thérèse Coffey, who, in addition, was appointed health and social care secretary. The deputy prime minister position is usually given to a close ally of the prime minister; Dominic Raab, whom Ms. Coffey replaced, stood in for Mr. Johnson when he was hospitalized with Covid-19. Despite the diversity, there were few signs that Ms. Truss was using her cabinet appointments to try to heal the divisions in the Conservative Party. Senior ministers who backed Mr. Sunak, like Mr. Raab and Grant Shapps, were left empty-handed. Mr. Sunak, a former chancellor whose resignation in July precipitated Mr. Johnson’s ouster, earlier said he would not serve in Ms. Truss’s cabinet.

Ms. Truss had been Mr. Johnson’s foreign secretary and never broke with him even as his career dissolved in scandal. On Tuesday, she said, “History will see him as a hugely consequential prime minister,” citing the fact that he had led Britain out of the European Union, overseen a rapid rollout of coronavirus vaccines and backed Ukraine against the Russian onslaughtMr. Johnson vacated Downing Street on Tuesday morning. In his valedictory remarks, delivered under a dewy sunshine, he made no mention of the scandals that cost him his job but expressed a hint of resentment at being ousted, likening the transfer of power to the handing over of a baton in a relay race.

“They change the rules halfway through, but never mind that now,” he said. He reminded the friendly crowd that less than three years ago, the Conservative Party won its largest parliamentary majority since 1987..He was, he said, like “one of those booster rockets that has fulfilled its function, and I will now be gently re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down invisibly in some remote obscure corner of the Pacific.”

A lover of the classics, Mr. Johnson also compared himself to Cincinnatus, a fifth-century Roman politician who saved the state from an invasion, then retired to his farm. Historians quibble with treating him as a figure of undiluted virtue: When the call came again, Cincinnatus returned to Rome as leader and, according to some experts, he was no champion of rights for ordinary people.

تم نقل السلطة إلى السيدة تروس من السيد جونسون بأسلوب يحترم الزمن ، في اجتماعات متتالية مع الملكة إليزابيث ، على الرغم من أن المكان كان غير عادي: قلعة بالمورال ، وهي ملكية مترامية الأطراف في المرتفعات الاسكتلندية حيث الملكة يقضي الكثير من الصيف.

كان السيد جونسون أول من وصل مع زوجته كاري. قدم استقالته إلى الملكة في غرفة الرسم بعد ذلك بوقت قصير. وصلت السيدة تروس بعد حوالي ساعة ، برفقة زوجها ، هيو أوليري ، لتصبح رئيس الوزراء الخامس عشر للقاء الملك (كان أولها ونستون تشرشل).

عُقدت الاجتماعات في بالمورال ، وليس في قصر باكنغهام ، كما هو معتاد ، لأن الملكة البالغة من العمر 96 عامًا تعاني من مشاكل في حركتها ونصحها أطبائها بعدم السفر. في صورة نشرها القصر ، صافحت ملكة مبتسمة ، تمسك بعصا ، السيدة تروس ، وكانت هذه هي المرة الأولى في عهدها الذي استمر 70 عامًا ، حيث ترحب الملكة برئيس وزراء جديد خارج قصر باكنغهام ، والأولى في الوقت الذي تم فيه ترقية أي رئيس وزراء في بالمورال منذ عام 1885 ، عندما استدعت الملكة فيكتوريا اللورد سالزبوري إلى اسكتلندا.

بعد انتهاء الاجتماع قبل الساعة الواحدة ظهرًا ، عادت السيدة تروس على الفور إلى لندن ، حيث كان من المفترض ، حسب التقاليد ، أن تتحدث من منصة أمام 10 داونينج ستريت. بينما كان موكبها يشق طريقه إلى المدينة ، غمرت الأمطار الغزيرة المتفرجين وأجبرت الموظفين على تغطية المنصة بقماش بلاستيكي.

سلك الموكب طريقا غير مباشر إلى وستمنستر ، مستهلكًا وقتًا كافيًا حتى يمر المطر حتى تتمكن السيدة تروس من التحدث في الخارج بدون مظلة.

كان الكثير من رسالة السيدة تروس مألوفة من وظيفتها الأخيرة كوزيرة خارجية شديدة الكلام. وتعهدت بأن بريطانيا ستدافع عن الحرية والديمقراطية في جميع أنحاء العالم. وألقت باللوم في العلل الاقتصادية على "حرب روسيا المروعة في أوكرانيا" ، وتحدثت عن "أزمة الطاقة التي سببتها حرب بوتين".

بعد لحظات من انتهاء حديثها ودخولها إلى 10 داونينج ستريت ، أرسل الرئيس بايدن تهنئته.

قال السيد بايدن على تويتر: "إنني أتطلع إلى تعميق العلاقة الخاصة بين بلدينا والعمل في تعاون وثيق بشأن التحديات العالمية ، بما في ذلك الدعم المستمر لأوكرانيا وهي تدافع عن نفسها ضد العدوان الروسي".