Row over Wilf’s middle name – and the truth about bust- up in Carrie’s flat
WHY HE HANDED WIFE HIS LIFE SAVINGS
IF MARINA Wheeler had not terminated her marriage to Boris, his fling with Carrie Symonds would have ended abruptly. Instead, he became unintentionally close to a woman only five years older than his eldest daughter. When their affair began in 2018, nobody on the Tory Party circuit could avoid Carrie, the then 29-year-old director of its communications team who regularly posted glamorous photos of herself on social media. While some praised her sound judgment and loyalty, others in party headquarters described her as manipulative, volatile and aggressive, especially towards women. Some said she has a ‘polarising personality’ and had been appointed because of a close friendship with Zac Goldsmith.
In 2017, her long-term relationship with a journalist broke up and she began advising Boris. Moody, uncertain and insecure, he needed company and reassurance from yet another new trusted female confidante.
Carrie’s critics said that what started as a fling became, to match her ambition, a serious affair. Others said she filled a vacancy. Inevitably, Marina found out about the relationship. There were fierce arguments, but after making a full confession, Boris had hoped for forgiveness from his loyal soul mate.
Marina was e mphatic. She couldn’t take his infidelity any more. She explicitly blamed his father, Stanley. All Boris’s worst qualities stemmed from that relationship. She refused to live with her husband any more.
Boris seems never to have considered the consequences of a permanent break-up with his wife, or that it would wreck his relationship with their children. Lara, their eldest daughter, told a friend: ‘He’s a selfish bastard. Mum is finished with him. She’ll never take him back now.’ Lara later posted on Instagram that this period was ‘the hardest and most hurtful year of my life’.
Under Carrie’s guidance, Boris began losing weight – off alcohol and late-night binges of cheese and chorizo. Their relationship had t aken a course t hat was not intended by Boris.
In March 2019, despite the turmoil just days before Brexit was scheduled to take place, Boris took Carrie for a long weekend to Positano, Italy, to celebrate her 31st birthday. Some feared that political priorities were being forsaken to satisfy Carrie’s wishes.
On June 21, it was reported that Bor i s a n d Ca r r i e h a d b e e n embroiled in a ferocious argument in her South London flat, and that the police had been called. It was claimed that Carrie was screaming that Boris had spilled red wine on her sofa. ‘You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt,’ she was reported to have said.
Then Boris i s said t o have shouted: ‘Get off my f****** laptop!’ followed by a loud crashing noise of glasses or plates. Carrie then allegedly shouted: ‘Get off me!’ and ‘Get out of my flat!’
Carrie denied saying ‘Get off me’ and other things she was quoted as saying. But no one disputed there had been an argument, fuelling i ntense speculation about the cause. Some said Carrie was furious that Boris had returned late from seeing Marina, who at the time was recovering from cervical cancer treatment. Others claimed
Carrie was angry that former mistress Petronella Wyatt had texted Boris, mocking Carrie’s ‘undignified half-naked’ performance on top of a car (she had posted a fun photo of herself on Instagram), and saying ‘she needs her teeth fixed’.
There were claims that he was l ooking at photos of Jennifer Arcuri. The truth was that Carrie, in an emotional outburst, was upset by Boris spilling a glass of red wine on her sofa: a domestic tiff.
Little over a month later, Boris became Prime Minister. No PM had ever lived in Downing Street with an unmarried partner. It was whispered t hat Boris missed Marina and that his affair with Carrie was no more than a fling, and not a life choice.
In February, a High Court judge approved the financial agreement Boris had reached with Marina. A divorce could rapidly follow.
The announcement disappointed friends who had speculated how Boris pined for his wife and hoped for a reconciliation. In their opinion, Boris had depended on Marina’s wisdom and stability. Carrie, they lamented, was too young and inexperienced to offer the same. The y woul d b l a me Ca r r i e ’s
What was a fling became, to match Carrie’s ambition, a serious affair
demands in the seventh month of her pregnancy for Boris’s absence from London at the start of the Covid crisis. In the middle of March he hosted a baby-shower party with Carrie at Chequers.
On April 29, just over a fortnight after Boris had been hospitalised with Covid, his sixth child, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas, was born.
Wilfred and Lawrie were the names of his parents’ grandfathers, explained No 10. The origin of Nicholas seemed less clear. Boris had told his mother that he would name the boy after Nick Wahl, her second husband. That news provoked uproar in Stanley’s home. Any links with Charlotte were declared t a b o o . Then Bori s declared that his son was named after Nicholas Hart and Nicholas Price, the doctors who had saved his life. The metaphorical tempera t ure a t St a nl e y’s home remained high.
In his flat in Downing Street, Boris was still weak from his illness. Nevertheless, Carrie believed Boris should be a modern father and change nappies. His sleep was constantly interrupted.
His relationship with his other children and family continued to be troubling, and i n May his divorce was finalised. Charlotte, his mother, was the rock in his life, but the pressure on the sick man was remorseless.
‘Boris got caught by a flirtatious minx,’ said Jennifer Arcuri of Carrie. ‘She’s controlling him. It drives me insane that there’s such a huge difference between me and Carrie. She’s just a type-A worker bee, riding a bicycle around the Westminster village.’