The ‘First Girlfriend’ takes six-week work break to campaign for young Tory women
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 Britain 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 Mr Johnson 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 UK poll and will return as the group’s communications chief immediately after the Election.
In 2017, she co-ordinated Conservative Brexiteer Zac
Goldsmith’s unexpected victory in the Remain-heavy seat of Richmond Park in the South-West London.
The upset, against the Lib Dems, was the Conservatives’ only gain in the capital on a disastrous night for the UK government.
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 the British parliament.
Mr Johnson said: ‘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, Downing Street 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, Mr Johnson appointed two senior women to draft his campaign manifesto, dubbed by insiders the ‘womanifesto’ due to its female-friendly policy focus.
And this weekend Conservative party strategists were delighted when two women were selected to replace retiring male Tory MPs in two of the party’s safest seats in the country, almost guaranteeing their election to the House of Commons next month.