BORIS AND THE BLONDE TORY AIDE
As Mail poll shows his adultery could harm Tories if he ousts May...
BORIS Johnson was cheating on his wife at the height of the Chequers crisis, it was claimed last night.
The 54-year-old womaniser is said to have been juggling Brexit with secret trysts with a blonde Tory party aide.
His long-suffering wife Marina Wheeler has finally had enough and the couple announced yesterday they would divorce. Their daughter Lara, 25, reportedly branded him a ‘selfish b******’ and said her mother would not take him back as in the past.
Sources said the marital crisis erupted in early July, around the time Mr Johnson sparked chaos by quitting as foreign secretary
over Theresa May’s Chequers plan. One source claimed Mr Johnson had dumped a lover to take up the blonde Tory aide. Another said he was involved with only one woman.
The aide was described as a young, vivacious and stunning blonde who regularly posts glamorous photos of herself online. But she took down her Instagram account yesterday and messages to her seeking comment went unanswered. She lives with her mother, who would not open the door yesterday.
Mr Johnson, who has had at least four extramarital affairs and made at least two of his mistresses pregnant, refused to comment when he left his country home in Oxfordshire.
Minutes later he and Miss Wheeler announced their marriage was over. In a joint statement they said: ‘Several months ago, after 25 years of marriage, we decided it was in our best interests to separate.
‘We have subsequently agreed to divorce and that process is under way. As friends we will continue to support our four children in the years ahead. We will not be commenting further.’ In other developments: A poll for the Mail suggested Mr Johnson’s divorce could make it harder for the Conservatives to win the next election;
It found that 30 per cent of all voters would be less likely to vote Tory if he was leader – against 21 per cent who said more likely;
The MP’s friends denied claims he leaked the news of the marriage split to ‘clear the decks’ before any leadership bid;
Mr Johnson’s biographer claimed the MP once offered him £100,000 to abandon the book he was writing.
Miss Wheeler, 54, a Cambridge-educated QC and the daughter of veteran BBC correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler, has been getting their assets professionally valued in recent weeks, a source said. She has put up with her husband’s infidelity for years. In 2004, he admitted having an affair with the writer Petronella Wyatt who had an abortion.
He had initially denied the fling but was sacked from the shadow cabinet for lying. In 2009, he was thrown out of the marital home again for fathering a lovechild with arts consultant Helen Macintyre.
Both times Miss Wheeler – mother to their four older children Lara, Milo Arthur, 23, Cassia Peaches, 21, and Theodore Apollo, 19 – took him back.
Fashion journalist Lara was reportedly overheard exploding with rage at her father, telling friends at a party he ‘is a selfish b******’.
The Sun newspaper quoted her as saying: ‘Mum is finished with him. She will never take him back now.’
A former aide to Mr Johnson said: ‘Marina is in the driving seat on this. She is being firm. No going back this time.’
They couple are thought to have been living apart for some time.
The announcement of the break-up came amid signs that Mr Johnson was poised to make a pitch for No 10.
There was no attempt by him to scotch the story as the news spread like wildfire on social media.
Allies of the MP said Miss Wheeler had initiated divorce proceedings and that these would shortly become public.
They said the couple had been considering announcing the end of their marriage on Monday, before the news leaked.
A friend said: ‘They were fine last Christmas but there’s been strain since then. I don’t think being in the Foreign Office helped – all that travel. Marina wasn’t at their daughter Cassia’s birthday party this week. In fact, she has not been evident for a while.
‘She’s been writing a book and that probably hasn’t helped either because she is no longer doing as many cases as a barrister. And yet I know they will always be incredibly close. He doesn’t do anything politically without consulting her. She’s highly intelligent and very pro-Brexit.’
Another friend said: ‘He hates the children knowing this stuff but there’s no getting around the fact that his living arrangements have changed. ‘It’s all very painful to watch.’ Despite the family upheaval, Mr Johnson took his four children – but not his wife – to his father Stanley’s holiday villa on Greece’s Pelion peninsula last week.
He was photographed by locals relaxing with one of the children in a taverna and at the airport with Milo.
It was rumoured earlier this year that Mr Johnson had taken to the habit of giving his police protection officers the slip for illicit liaisons. His spokesman declined to comment last night.