Hugh O'Leary | |
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 O'Leary in 2022 | |
| Born | Hugh Richard O'Leary 19 July 1974 Allerton, Liverpool, Merseyside, England |
| Education | London School of Economics |
| Occupation | Accountant |
| Known for | Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom (2022) |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Family | O'Leary |
Hugh Richard O'Leary (born 19 July 1974) is a British accountant. He is married to Liz Truss, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from September to October 2022. [1]
O'Leary was born at Allerton, Liverpool, and raised in Heswall, on the Wirral, as the eldest of three siblings. His mother Susan (née Dunn) was a nurse, and his father John O'Leary was a college lecturer who trained as a solicitor and worked for the legal firm of the Liverpool lawyer Rex Makin. [2] [3]
O'Leary attended Birkenhead School, where he studied Mathematics and Further Mathematics at A-level, applying unsuccessfully to the Oxford University to study PPE. He went on to read econometrics and mathematical economics at the London School of Economics before becoming an accountant. [3] Whilst at university, he was acquainted with Thérèse Coffey, who was later Liz Truss's deputy prime minister. [4]
O'Leary worked as a finance director at Affinity Global Real Estate. [5]
He has also worked at Arrakis Investments Limited, a company that, at the time, had no employees other than its one director. [6]
O'Leary has stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party in local elections to Greenwich London Borough Council on several occasions. At the 1998 council election, he was a candidate for the Labour-held St Alfege ward. [7] At the subsequent council election in 2002, he stood in Greenwich West; all three seats were won by the Labour Party. [3] [8] [9]
His most recent candidacy to date was at the 2006 Greenwich election, this time in the Charlton ward, when O'Leary and the other opposition parties finished a considerable margin behind the winning Labour candidates. [10] At this election, his wife, Liz Truss, was elected to Eltham South ward, which she represented until 2010. [11] O'Leary has remained active in politics as a member of the Conservatives, canvassing with the party in Greenwich in 2022. [12] [5]
O'Leary met Truss at the 1997 Conservative Party conference in Blackpool. [3] [13] The couple's first date was spent ice-skating, during which O'Leary sprained his ankle. [3] O'Leary and Truss married in 2000; they live in Greenwich, south-east London, and the South West Norfolk constituency which Truss represented from 2010 to 2024. [5] [14] He stayed with Truss following her 2004–2005 extramarital affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field, [15] which led to the breakdown of Field's marriage to his wife, Michele Acton. [16] The couple have two daughters. [3]
Truss, who in her ministerial career has formally declared almost no financial or familial interests, said in a submission to the List of Ministers' interests that her husband Hugh O'Leary worked at a company called Arrakis Investments Limited – yet documents filed with Companies House say the firm at the time had no employees other than its one director.
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