Those who caught sight of Carrie Symonds as she slipped quietly out of the back of No 10 last week could have been forgiven for wondering if she might be harbouring a secret.
Aside from her decision not to use the famous black door at the front of the Downing Street residence she now shares with the Prime Minister, the over-sized black coat she was wearing, left loose at the front so that it concealed her usually slender frame, hinted at the possibility that she might, in fact, be hiding a burgeoning baby bump.
It was only a matter of time, of course, before the truth was going to come out and in the end Carrie chose the oh-so-modern platform of Instagram to announce to the world that she and Boris Johnson had become engaged last December and had ‘a baby hatching early in the summer’.
Carrie chose the oh-so-modern platform of Instagram to announce to the world that she and Boris Johnson had become engaged last December and had ‘a baby hatching early in the summer’
While 55-year-old Boris isn’t short of a child or two, Carrie is 31 and has no children of her own. Her desire to become a mother is understandable. Indeed, according to close friends of the couple, it was a ‘non-negotiable’ element of their relationship for Carrie. ‘That is what she has always wanted… and he was happy to oblige,’ a friend revealed.
Even so, the timing of her pregnancy, which clashes with the finalisation of Boris’s divorce, will undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows.
But then, right from the start, nothing about Boris and Carrie’s relationship has been by the book – from the early days of their illicit affair behind the back of Boris’s wife Marina Wheeler, to the moment police were called to Carrie’s London apartment last June after neighbours heard the pair screaming at each other.
It’s fair to say that the grand Georgian residence off Whitehall which once housed the likes of Disraeli, Gladstone and Churchill has never seen a relationship quite like it. Or has it?
Carrie appears to come from a long line of women built to keep their nerve in the face of what others might see as scandalous behaviour. It is a line that traces all the way back to the elegant drawing rooms that Carrie now calls home.
While 55-year-old Boris isn’t short of a child or two, Carrie is 31 and has no children of her own
According to society speculation, and Symonds family legend, Carrie’s grandmother, Anne Harrison, was the daughter of PM Herbert Asquith and Hilda Harrison, a young Major’s daughter – the result of their illicit romance conducted in Downing Street that started over a seemingly polite game of bridge.
Anne herself then went on to have an affair with the married journalist John Beavan, later Lord Ardwick, with Anne giving birth to Matthew Symonds, Carrie’s father.
In keeping with the family tradition of flying in the face of orthodox behaviour, Carrie herself is the love child of a relationship started while her parents were both married to other people. They met at The Independent newspaper where her father Matthew was deputy editor and her glamorous mother, Josephine McAfee, was the in-house lawyer.
The couple never lived together and Carrie was brought up by Josephine alone in East Sheen, south-west London, while her father continued to live in nearby Twickenham with his wife, Alison, with whom he also has three children.
Carrie’s relationship with her father is said to be difficult. ‘Carrie has said she considers him to have been a domineering, absentee father from her childhood,’ says a family friend. ‘He did visit, from time to time, but Carrie has complained that he would come in and tell her and her mother what to do.’
But it is surely to her mother that she will turn now for the steely reserve needed to organise a wedding – the first for a serving prime minister in 200 years – while she is heavily pregnant. No easy task.
There has been much speculation about where they will get married, with some friends suggesting they are planning to slip away abroad for a private ceremony.
She may be well aware that Boris’s first marriage to society beauty Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987 was a grand affair held at Woodhouse, a Grade II-listed 1,500-acre estate in Shropshire. While his bride looked radiant in white, her hair adorned with flowers, Boris, in typically shambolic style, arrived for his own wedding without his trousers. Or shoes.
He had to borrow trousers and cufflinks from Tory MP John Biffen for the ceremony. Sadly, Mr Biffen’s shoes did not fit, so he wore a shabbier pair. By all accounts, the bride’s father – chairman of Christie’s auction house – was not impressed.
Within an hour of his arrival, Boris had also misplaced the ring, and then lost their wedding certificate. By contrast, his second marriage to Marina Wheeler in 1993 was held at Horsham Town Hall in Sussex near her parents’ home with close family and only five or six friends each.
For all the grandeur of being the prime minister’s bride, friends expect Carrie’s wedding to Boris to be a low-key affair. What pregnant bride wants a fuss? And she is unlikely to be trying on eye-wateringly expensive dresses for her trip down the aisle. To date, her go-to designers are very firmly routed on the high street and include Karen Millen and Eponine London – labels also favoured by the Duchess of Cambridge, to whom Carrie’s style bears a striking resemblance. She is also known to hire dresses for special occasions, admitting openly to joining the dress hire website My Wardrobe HQ, paying a £9.99 a month membership fee to hire designer outfits for a fraction of their full cost.
Those who caught sight of Carrie Symonds as she slipped quietly out of the back of No 10 last week could have been forgiven for wondering if she might be harbouring a secret
But however unconventional the start to the Johnson-Symonds union there is little doubt their impending marriage will finally enable her to become a fully-fledged First Lady.
Who can forget the sight of Carrie lurking among rank and file staff members outside No 10 when Boris returned from meeting the Queen last July? As his mistress, Carrie was not invited by Her Majesty to join him – as is usual with PM’s spouses. Sporting an elegant £120 red and pink daisy-patterned dress from Ghost she remained patiently outside while the man she affectionately called ‘Bozzie Bear’ made his entrance to No 10 for the first time.
Since then her profile as the PM’s plus-one has steadily grown but compared to her Downing Street predecessors Carrie’s role has evolved differently.
In a sign of things to come, while she didn’t accompany Boris on his tour of the UK during the Tory election campaign late last year, she was very present on doorsteps, campaigning with Dilyn, the dog they have adopted together.
However, it was revealed last week that Carrie has hired former ITN communications chief Sarah Vaughan-Brown, 45, as her personal adviser, though with the Conservative party rather than the taxpayer picking up what is thought to be a six-figure salary. As a mother-to-be, there will surely be no more keeping a low profile.
Should we be in any doubt about Carrie’s capabilities, her life to date shows that she can be strong and determined. Educated privately at £23,000-a-year Godolphin and Latymer girls’ school in west London, she went on to study theatre and art history at the University of Warwick and left with a first class degree.
Her first ambition was to become an actress but chose to enter the political arena instead, landing her first job working for Zac Goldsmith, then MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston. She joined the Conservative party as a press officer in 2010 and first met Boris when she worked on his campaign team for re-election as Mayor of London.
She went on to work as adviser to two Secretaries of State, including the then home secretary Sajid Javid, and as a director of communications for the Conservative party. She now works part-time for the ocean conservation charity Oceana.
Speculation about her relationship with Boris began in February 2018 when the pair were photographed leaving the Conservative party’s Black and White Ball.
Speculation about her relationship with Boris began in February 2018 when the pair were photographed leaving the Conservative party’s Black and White Ball
A week later Carrie was heard telling friends she had spent Valentine’s Day night with Boris at the 5-star Rosewood Hotel in London’s Holborn. A month later social media posts revealed Boris had attended her ‘alcohol-fuelled’ 30th birthday party.
In September, Boris and his wife Marina announced that they were getting divorced. In the months that followed Carrie was widely credited with smartening up Boris’s appearance and encouraging him to lose 12lb by giving up alcohol and his late-night ‘cheese and chorizo’ habit.
Last June, the couple’s love affair appeared to have hit a rough patch when police were called to a domestic at Carrie’s £750,000 apartment in Camberwell, south east London after neighbours overheard the pair rowing and recorded it. Carrie could be heard telling her lover to ‘get off me’ and ‘get out of my flat’ as well as chastising him for ruining her sofa with red wine and telling him.
Boris meanwhile was allegedly heard refusing to leave the flat and telling Carrie to ‘get off my f***ing laptop’. The neighbour was said to have heard ‘a loud scream and banging, followed by silence’. He said that ‘it was loud enough and angry enough that I felt frightened for the welfare of those involved.’
The Met, however, decided ‘there was no cause for police action’.
Following the incident, the pair were photographed cosying up in a Sussex garden in what was widely believed to be a staged photograph. Carrie’s profile remained low but it was clear that the couple’s relationship was back on track when, in September, she and Boris adopted rescue dog Dilyn. Those who saw her clutching the Jack Russell and smothering him in kisses can have been in no doubt about her growing maternal instincts.
Days later she accompanied Boris to Balmoral, where the Queen was said to be ‘uncomfortable’ because the pair weren’t married.
Last June, the couple’s love affair appeared to have hit a rough patch when police were called to a domestic at Carrie’s £750,000 apartment in Camberwell, south east London. Following the incident, the pair were photographed cosying up in a Sussex garden in what was widely believed to be a staged photograph (pictured)
Behind the scenes Boris’s inner circle have been referring to Carrie as ‘Flotus’ – a reference to the ‘First Lady of the United States’ title given to the US President’s wife. It is a role she has visibly been preparing for, cultivating an image which has seen her likened to a blonde Kate Middleton, all high-necked ankle-length gowns and pussy bows.
While her romantic past pales in comparison to the PM’s, Carrie does have one. Oliver Haiste, who runs a whisky exporting business, was in a three-year relationship with her until 2010. Speaking last year he said ‘she often brings a lot of intensity to relationships, be they romantic or friendships. That passion can work the other way when she is not happy with you. When times are good she is very loyal. When times are bad, she can go in completely the opposite direction and possibly, in my view, to excess.’
But friends say that if anyone can tame ‘Bozzie Bear’, it’s the woman he calls his ‘little Otter’. Aside from the fact they are said to be deeply in love, the months ahead are busy ones for Boris. His once roving eye is already focused on the UK’s ongoing EU trade negotiations. The arrival of a new baby at No 10 means the PM really does have his work cut out.
As Boris Johnson announces his engagement to pregnant Carrie, will the Prime Minister make the birth?
By Vanessa Allen and Jason Groves for The Daily Mail
Boris Johnson is ‘absolutely delighted’ that he is to become a father again, he said.
The Prime Minister, 55, and Carrie Symonds confirmed they were engaged and expecting a baby, following months of rumours inside Westminster.
Asked about the pregnancy yesterday, he smiled as he responded: ‘Absolutely delighted, I’m absolutely delighted, of course.’ However, Mr Johnson has not revealed if he intends to take paternity leave – and the baby is believed to be due at the time of a series of crucial foreign summits.
Boris Johnson is ‘absolutely delighted’ that he is to become a father again, he said. Pictured: Mr Johnson visits a laboratory at the Public Health England National Infection Service in Colindale, north London, on Sunday
Miss Symonds, 31, has told friends she is around five months’ pregnant, meaning she is likely to give birth in June. Mr Johnson is due to attend key events including the G7 summit in the US and the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Rwanda that month.
He is also expected at a high-level Brexit summit in the days before a crucial European Council meeting in Brussels, meaning he could be away from Britain for at least 11 days in June.
Mr Johnson is believed to have proposed to Miss Symonds during their Christmas break in Mustique, but the pair kept the engagement quiet while his divorce from his second wife was agreed.
Their announcement was made just 11 days after his divorce settlement with Marina Wheeler was agreed in court. The couple had been married for 27 years and have four children.
Mr Johnson is believed to have proposed to Miss Symonds during their Christmas break in Mustique. Pictured: The couple arriving at Downing Street in December
Reports have suggested that Mr Johnson and Miss Symonds might ‘slip away quietly abroad to marry in private’ once the decree absolute was finalised, but their plans are unknown.
The couple met when Miss Symonds worked on his successful bid for a second term as London Mayor in 2012, but were only linked romantically in 2018, shortly after his split from Miss Wheeler.
The wedding will be Mr Johnson’s third and he has at least five children already – four with Miss Wheeler and a fifth from an affair with art consultant Helen Macintyre.
He will become the first prime minister in history to get divorced, and married, and have a baby while living in Downing Street.
David Cameron and wife Samantha had their youngest daughter Florence in 2010, three months after he entered Downing Street. Tony Blair and wife Cherie had youngest child Leo when he was PM in 2000. Mrs Blair revealed in her memoirs that he was conceived on a visit to Balmoral. The timing of Miss Symonds’ announcement prompted speculation that she also could have fallen pregnant at the Queen’s estate in Scotland.
She and Mr Johnson spent a night at the castle but returned to London the next day.
Mr Johnson and Miss Symonds met when she worked on his successful bid for a second term as London Mayor in 2012, but were only linked romantically in 2018, shortly after his split from Marina Wheeler (pictured)
It has also been suggested that the baby was conceived during the Conservative Party conference in Manchester in October – his first as PM.
Bookmakers have begun offering odds for the name even though the gender is not yet known, with Charlotte and James early favourites.
Winston and Emmeline have also been popular, because of the Prime Minister’s wartime hero and Miss Symonds’ support for women’s rights. Stanley has been mooted as a tribute to Mr Johnson’s father.
Stanley Johnson, 79, hinted at the latest addition to his family in an interview for this month’s edition of Saga magazine. He spoke about enjoying time with his grandchildren and said there may be ‘more on the way’.
Miss Symonds confirmed her pregnancy on Instagram, alongside a photograph of Mr Johnson kissing her cheek, apparently taken during their Mustique holiday.
She said: ‘I wouldn’t normally post this kind of thing on here but I wanted my friends to find out from me.
‘Many of you already know but for my friends that still don’t, we got engaged at the end of last year.
‘And we’ve got a baby hatching early summer. Feel incredibly blessed.’
Mr Johnson married Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987. They divorced in 1993, just 12 days before he married Miss Wheeler. They have children Lara Lettice, 26, Milo Arthur, 24, Cassia Peaches, 22, and 20-year-old Theodore Apollo.