Carrie takes six-week work break to campaign for young Tory women candidates
CARRIE Symonds has given up work for six weeks to campaign to keep her partner Boris Johnson in Downing Street, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The former Tory Party adviser will tour the country electioneering for young female Conservative candidates in marginal seats in the run up to December 12. It is also expected that the socalled First Girlfriend will join the Prime Minister on the traditional bus tour of the country during the final crucial weeks of the campaign. Ms Symonds, 31, has taken unpaid leave from her job at environmental group Oceana ahead of next month’s crunch poll and will return as the group’s communications chief immediately after the Election. In 2017, she co-ordinated Brexiteer Zac Goldsmith’s unexpected victory in the Remain-heavy seat of Richmond Park in the SouthWest London. The upset, against the Lib Dems, was the Conservatives’ only gain in the capital on a disastrous night for the Government.
One of the first stops on Ms Symonds’s tour will be to the ultramarginal seat of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, where Tory Dehenna Davison is attempting to overturn a 502 majority to unseat Labour’s Helen Goodman.
If she wins, the 26-year-old will be the constituency’s first ever Conservative MP.
Last night Ms Davison told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I was delighted when Carrie got in t ouch to say she’ll be coming to spend some time campaigning in Bishop Auckland. It’s going to be really close, and it just shows how seriously No 10 are taking the fight to turn the North East blue.
‘As a young, female Tory candidate, I’m not exactly the norm, and Carrie has been so supportive in helping me to promote my campaign.
‘ We all recognise the need to broaden the range of people in Parliament to better reflect our society, and, with our great range of candidates, we are fighting to make that happen with no quotas in sight.’
The drive to promote women is understood to be behind
Ms Symonds’s support for the 50:50 Campaign to see equal representation of men and women in Parliament. Baroness Jenkin, co-founder of the Women2Win group set up by Theresa May to help get more female Conservative MPs, said last night: ‘ Carrie is an experienced campaigner and I know women candidates will be delighted to have her support in their constituencies over the next few weeks.’
Last month the Prime Minister told the Women2Win group that more had to be done to turn the
Conservative Party into a ‘feminocracy’, saying: ‘We’ve got to have more women winning great seats, more women being selected for Conservative seats.’
Mr Johnson added: ‘More women being selected – and that is what we are going to achieve – is a fantastic thing for this party and a fantastic thing for our country.’
However, No 10 faces the departure of a number of prominent female Tory MPs such as Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd and Mims Davies.
Mr Johnson has been accused of having a ‘women problem’ as the Tory leader consistently polls less favourably with female voters.
In a bid to counter this, the Prime Minister appointed two senior women to draft his campaign manifesto, dubbed by insiders the ‘womanifesto’ due to its female-friendly policy focus.
And this weekend party strategists were delighted when two women were selected to replace retiring male Tory MPs in two of the party’s safest seats, almost guaranteeing their election to the Commons next month.
Ruth Edwards will replace incumbent Ken Clarke as the Tory candidate in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, and Julie Marson will replace departing Mark Prisk in Hertford and Stortford in Hertfordshire.