'I was in the room when Liz Truss went missing then lost her seat - here's what happened'

A journalist has described the shocking moment former Prime Minister Liz Truss was stunned to lose her supposedly safe seat to Labour on a seismic General Election night.

From late evening last Thursday, counting began for the election and Ms Truss, who served as the nation's Prime Minister for just 49 days last year, was contesting her own seat of South West Norfolk.

Ms Truss had won the constituency in 2019 with a massive majority of around 25,000 over her nearest rival. But with Britain going to polls five years and despite the political landscape shifting with Labour ahead in the polls, many still believed Ms Truss was safe as South West Norfolk had voted Tory for decades.

Some signs had emerged during the evening that shocks could happen, with both Penny Mordaunt and Jacob Rees-Mogg losing their own seats.

However, BBC News Analysis Editor Ros Atkins, who was in Norfolk for the count for Ms Truss, said it was only at the last minute the earth-shattering scale of the shift in her own constituency was revealed.

Describing the night, the BBC journalist wrote that during the early hours of last Friday, a "consistent message" was coming through that something was happening, and that a few hours later just after 6.30am the "story of the night" was about to happen.

He said: "The Lib Dems, Greens, and Labour were all saying Reform were exceeding expectations and that it was tight - between Ms Truss, Labour and Reform.

"Liz Truss, though, still hadn’t arrived. My colleague Chris Gibson was soon told by an election official that she had definitely lost.

"He showed Chris a message he’d sent his wife: 'Turn on the TV. The story of the night is about to happen.' Some in the hall knew the result; most, I think, did not."

Just before candidates traditionally take to the stage to hear the results of an election read out, they or their teams are given the official result from the Returning Officer.

Mr Atkins said after Ms Truss and her team realised she had astonishingly lost to Labour, she was initially nowhere to be seen.

He recalled: "We have received a strong indication that Liz Truss has lost, I told BBC viewers. Some people near me gasped, others cheered.

"With all the other candidates present and the result now widely known, Ms Truss’ absence was causing frustration. The slow handclap began. Minutes later, two cars swept into the car park and she emerged from one of them.

"The other candidates were already on the stage. Ms Truss took her place by Toby McKenzie of Reform, who only got into politics in the last few months. He and the former PM would end up fewer than 1,500 votes apart.

"I was standing five metres from Ms Truss as Labour's narrow victory was declared. Throughout, Ms Truss stared ahead impassively, arms straight at her sides."

Liz Truss had become the first former Prime Minister since Labour's Ramsay MacDonald in 1935 to lose their seat in Parliament. She left the stage within seconds of the count being announced, refusing to give an expected speech to concede her loss.

Speaking to Mr Atkins after the result, a dejected Ms Truss said she thought her loss was because "Conservatives haven’t delivered sufficiently on the policies people want".

On the question of whether she would stay in Conservative politics, Mr Atkins said Ms Truss added with a hint of smile: "I’ve got a lot to think about. I haven’t slept last night so give me a bit of time, but I will definitely talk to you again when I’ve got the opportunity."