My heart breaks for wife Boris betrayed
FOR 25 years Marina Wheeler QC, one of the country’s most highly regarded human rights lawyers, stood by her husband Boris Johnson. Quiet, meticulously elegant, forensically clever, she was steadfast in her support — even though she was tried to the limit.
She put up with his public affair with Petronella Wyatt, an employee of the magazine her husband then edited. And she managed to stomach his many other mistresses, including Helen Macintyre with whom he has a daughter.
She even boosted him politically at a crucial juncture, extolling in the Spectator magazine the merits of a hard Brexit just after Boris went behind Theresa May’s back as Foreign Secretary and published his own vision for EU withdrawal.
Marina, 55, put their family first, she was their glue. They raised four children together while she nursed and encouraged his one dream — of becoming Prime Minister.
How many times can she have thought that, if that dream were ever realised and he walked through the door of No 10, she would be proudly by his side, along with their children?
Instead, on Boris’s arm as he heads towards the winners’ enclosure, is his new girlfriend, 31-year-old Carrie Symonds. Whether it was Boris or Marina who called time on their marriage
— and divorce is now pending — she must feel that sense of crushing betrayal that strikes at the heart of any 50-something whose husband trades her in for a younger model.
Boris is said to be devastated by the anger of Marina and their four children. Alongside that anger will be raw pain. For many abandoned wives, the pain can be contained in private. Late at night, after too many glasses of chablis, they may perhaps glance at the Facebook account of their husbands’ new squeezes, but at least it ends there.
Marina cannot escape now her husband looks certain to become PM. She will not be able to avoid images of Boris and the blonde who’s little more than half her age. How utterly desolating that must be.
If she becomes the first girlfriend to move into Downing Street when the PM is still married to another woman, Carrie will only command more media attention. And, for Marina, that will pour on even more agony.
I cast no judgment over Boris’s personal life nor his suitability for the highest office. All of us are flawed.
But my heart breaks for Marina and his kids. ONE of the most shocking images this week was Melanie Geymonat and her partner Chris, covered in blood after yobs attacked them. Their crime? They’re two gay women taunted by Neanderthal men trying to make them kiss. I hope the boors are prosecuted. I really did think we had left all that gay-bashing behind us. MUCH admiration for Ben Fogle, who has donated the entire fee for his BBC1 Animal Park series to subsidise free TV licences for the elderly after the BBC said it was scrapping them for many over the age of 75. We’re still waiting to hear from Gary Lineker how much of his £1.75 million BBC salary he’ll donate.