‘Bozzie Bear’ Boris, 54, and his ‘Little Otter’, 30, out in public as a couple
WITH bashful smiles and their eyes locked, he looks besotted – and so does she.
Tory Boris Johnson, 54, and Carrie Symonds, who at 30 is some 24 years his junior, were clearly smitten with each other as they strolled together while exchanging loving glances.
The couple have kept a low profile since the Brexiteer and his wife Marina announced they were divorcing last September.
A friend of Mr Johnson said: ‘Boris is different around Carrie. He only has eyes for her. It’s very genuine. He wouldn’t have gone through all this if it wasn’t the real deal. He just seems like a better man around her. He’s determined not to do anything to mess it up.’
It is unclear if the couple have moved in together. But certainly Mr Johnson – who owns a home in Oxfordshire, southeast England – has been spotted in the mornings leaving the flat in south London which Ms Symonds bought last year.
At New Year, they jointly hosted a discreet party there for close friends, at which they were reportedly ‘very much in love’. They also went on a New Year holiday to the Greek villa owned by Mr Johnson’s father Stanley, where last summer Boris holidayed with his children. Indeed, so besotted is Mr Johnson with Ms Symonds – who is only four years older than his daughter Lara Lettice – that one source has said: ‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they ended up getting married once his divorce is all settled.’
To Mr Johnson she is simply his adorable ‘Little Otter’, the pet name he apparently calls her by. She, in turn, affectionately calls him ‘Bozzie Bear’ – after Fozzie, the big, fluffy-haired Muppet, reportedly.
Visible evidence of Ms Symonds’ influence on Mr Johnson’s political profile was on display yesterday when he delivered his Brexit speech in front of a JCB digger at the maker’s factory in the English midlands.
Mr Johnson’s shirt collar looked two sizes too big, a result of him losing two stone after she persuaded him to go on a diet. She has brought the skills from her job as Conservative party director of communications to bear on him too.
He struck a more sober tone in a televised interview with a UK radio station this week. Gone were his smartalec references to Ancient Greece or Rome. There were none of the contrived harrumphings to dodge difficult questions which make him look buffoonish and evasive.