Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Carrie heads for labour
CARRIE Symonds is pregnant with Boris Johnson’s baby – which may have been conceived as the couple celebrated his first party conference speech as Prime Minister.
Carrie, 31, told friends yesterday that she is around five months pregnant and that she and the Conservative PM, 55, are now engaged.
She posted yesterday on her Instagram account (apples_symonds): “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.”
Rumours were swirling around Westminster throughout the week, with gossip that an announcement was due.
Speculation was fuelled by those who noticed that ex-Tory communications director Carrie had given up drinking.
A June baby could mean the couple conceived at the Midland Hotel in Manchester during the Tory Party conference in October.
Mr Johnson and Carrie’s relationship has not all been plain sailing. They first met in 2012 when Carrie was 23 and brought in to work on his Mayor of London re-election campaign.
There were whispers of a romance, but it wasn’t until 2018 when Mr Johnson and his wife, barrister Marina Wheeler, announced they were getting a divorce that the relationship with Carrie was made common knowledge.
Mr Johnson, a serial philanderer who was reportedly branded a “selfish b******” by his eldest daughter, has had a string of extra-marital flings.
Friends said he was soon smitten with Carrie and her influence on him became immediately obvious.
Mr Johnson, who had repeatedly voted against a ban on fox-hunting, suddenly appeared to adopt his new girlfriend’s sensibilities.
Her influence was even explored in court in a judicial review into how the Government came to axe a cull on badgers in
Derbyshire. But then
the pair, who recently adopted a puppy, hit the headlines in June last year when police were called to the home they shared in Camberwell, South London.
Neither has commented on the row at the flat, but witnesses claimed they
EX PM with his second wife Marina
This is a very good day to bury bad news with good news
SENIOR TORY ON TIMING OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT
heard Carrie telling him to “get off me” and “get out of my flat”.
A neighbour who heard screaming and a plate smashing called 999 over fears for Carrie. Mr Johnson allegedly refused to leave the flat, telling her “get off my f***ing laptop” before a loud crash was heard. Carrie reportedly said: “You don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt.”
Days later, photos of the pair emerged showing them gazing into each other’s eyes. But this became an embarrassment when it was reported that the pics had been taken weeks previously.
Carrie, an adviser for US environmental campaign group Oceana, was not with Mr Johnson when he entered No 10 for the first time as PM and yesterday’s announcement is likely to cement them as a couple in many people’s eyes.
She would become the PM’s third wife, although it is unclear how many children he has – it is at least five. He has four grown-up children with Marina and another with property developer Helen Macintyre, conceived during an affair.
Mr Johnson would be the first PM to marry in office for 250 years. The last baby born to a PM was Florence, now nine, to David and Samantha Cameron.
Carrie’s new PR assistant Sarah Vaughan-Brown said: “The PM and Miss Symonds are very pleased to announce their engagement and that they are expecting a baby in the early summer.”
There were suspicions the timing was to deflect from the savaging of Home Secretary Priti Patel by her departing Permanent Secretary Sir Philip Rutnam.
A senior Tory said: “This is a very good day to bury bad news with good news.”
His divorce from Marina is being finalised after a year-long dispute over money. She often accused her husband of adultery during their marriage, which began in 1993, 12 days after his divorce from first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen.