No 10: Carrie’s on maternity leave, she’s NOT running the country!
DOWNING STREET yesterday rejected claims that Boris Johnson’s fiancee was unofficially running the country.
The unprecedented denial follows allegations that Carrie Symonds has forced the Vote Leave team out of No10 and replaced them with her friends and allies.
Asked about an allegation from the Bow Group think-tank that Miss Symonds was ‘taking a central role in running the country without any accountability or authority to do so’, the Prime Minister’s press secretary replied: ‘It’s incorrect.’
Allegra Stratton added: ‘The Prime Minister’s fiancee is on maternity leave, she’s raising their son Wilf and shortly she will be taking up a new role at the wildlife charity, the Aspinall Foundation.’
A former colleague of Miss Symonds suggested that some of the briefings against her could be because she was a woman.
Tory MP Laura Trott told the BBC: ‘It’s very distasteful and incredibly unnecessary.’ But another former colleague of Miss Symonds has claimed she had effectively become chief of staff in Downing Street.
Nic Conner, a Bow Group researcher who worked with her on the Brexit campaign, said: ‘Anyone holding so much unelected power, and who cannot be removed, is not only unconstitutional but is damaging to British democracy.’
He said he was concerned by claims last week that she forced out Oliver ‘Sonic’ Lewis, an aide from the Vote Leave team.
Miss Symonds, 32, had previously been accused of driving the departure of Dominic Cummings, 56-year-old Mr Johnson’s chief adviser, and of Lee Cain, his communications chief.
In their place she is said to have influenced the hiring of her friends.