Forget the nanny state: Carrie’s mother joins No10 bubble to help with childcare
IT CANNOT be easy to look after your eight-month-old baby during a pandemic – especially when your husband is the Prime Minister.
So for Carrie Symonds, it’s mum to the rescue.
Her mother Josephine McAfee, 73, is understood to have formed a Downing Street ‘bubble’ to help care for her grandson Wilfred.
‘Nanny’ McAfee has apparently been travelling to Whitehall from her home in East Sheen, south-west London.
The eight-mile trip and the indoor mixing is perfectly legal on two counts: Two households can form a bubble to provide childcare, and those who live alone can create a bubble with another household.
Miss McAfee, seen walking a dog near No 10 on Friday with Wilfred’s hired nanny, lives by herself.
She had Carrie with Matthew Symonds, a co-founder of The Independent, as a result of an affair when she was a lawyer at the newspaper.
Carrie, 32, a former Conservative Party press officer and director of communications, gave birth to Wilfred in April, during the first lockdown.
The family live together in the large flat above No 11 Downing Street, rather than in the more compact accommodation above No 10.
Wilfred’s arrival in the world was overshadowed when his father Boris Johnson, 56, became seriously ill with coronavirus. Tasked with leading the country through the pandemic, the Prime Minister is sure to be grateful for an extra pair of hands, as well as a paid-for nanny.
Miss McAfee was reported yesterday to be helping out with babysitting. Miss Symonds and Boris Johnson, the first unmarried couple to l i ve together in Downing Street, announced their engagement in February.
Asked about the ‘bubble’ arrangement, a spokesman for the Prime Minister declined to comment.