Liz Truss’ Ex-Lover Mark Field Drops Bombshell Details on Secret Affair

Former MP Mark Field has finally spoken out about his infamous affair with Liz Truss, revealing how their relationship ultimately led to the breakdown of his marriage. Mark, now 60, admitted that cracks in his relationship with his wife, Michele, started to appear in the early 2000s—around the same time Liz entered his life. While he described their marriage as “reassuring” at the time, he now realizes the lack of discussions about children or major disagreements should have been a warning sign.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Mark recalled meeting Liz at the Conservative Party Conference in October 2002, where they first connected under the “romantic dimmed lights” of the Highcliff Hotel in Bournemouth. At the time, Liz—who had been married to Hugh O’Leary since 2000—wasn’t yet an MP but would later go on to win the South West Norfolk seat in 2010.

After exchanging pleasantries and offering to help her with her political ambitions, Mark received an email from Liz the following Monday, asking for advice on interview techniques. That meeting led to more frequent lunches and coffees over the next year, reported the Mirror.

He described Liz as a whirlwind of energy, obsessed with politics, saying, “Even then, Liz came across as an impulsive bundle of energy.” When Mark was tasked with drafting the Conservative Party’s international trade policy, he and Liz worked closely together, forming a bond that went beyond professional collaboration. He even noted that when she later became Trade Secretary, she continued using phrases they had coined together years earlier.

Mark admitted that their professional relationship turned into something more towards the end of 2003. Reflecting on the nature of their affair, he said: “There is something very unreal in any affair, especially when both parties are married. The mundanities of clearing the dinner table, putting out the rubbish, or watching television together play no part in your shared existence.”

Despite the thrill of their secret relationship, Mark knew their marriages were in very different places. He recalled how, every few months, Liz would attempt to cool things down, only to come back a week later with an apology. Their affair continued even as Liz launched her 2005 general election campaign in Calder Valley, which she lost by just under 1,400 votes.

Their relationship started to fizzle out when Mark spent the summer of 2005 traveling and Liz went on family holidays. By September, she told him she was staying with her husband. “I knew in an instant that my own marriage was over. Liz’s marriage, however, had, and still has, endured.”

Reflecting on her short-lived tenure as Prime Minister, Mark said Liz had the ambition, intelligence, and self-belief needed to reach the top. However, he claimed that her political career was built on big talk rather than action. “Her entire decade-long ministerial career had been an object lesson in relentlessly talking a good game but delivering next to nothing.”

He also criticized her approach to government, saying: “Her grand plan to cut taxes and slash public expenditure ignored the reality of an aging population increasingly reliant on the state. Meanwhile, her mantra of ‘growth, growth, growth’ lacked any real evidence of how she planned to achieve it.”

Mark’s revelations shed light on both his personal and political history with Liz, showing how their affair not only ended his marriage but also gave him a front-row seat to her meteoric rise—and fall—in British politics.