Why she must tread carefully now she’s the PM’s consort
THe problem for Carrie symonds, installed in No 10 as Boris Johnson’s girlfriend and partner, is that no one has ever before filled the role she is playing.
Former leaders from Lord Palmerston to David Lloyd George had their extra-marital flings. But until now no British Prime Minister has lived openly with someone to whom he (or she) is not married.
this creates difficulties for Carrie. should she conduct herself as though she were Boris’s wife, and thereby accept the limitations of speech and action normally enjoined on prime ministerial spouses? Or should she behave like an entirely independent person?
to judge by the past few days, she may be trying – in Boris’s own memorable phrase in respect of the EU – to have her cake and eat it. On the one hand, she will accompany the Prime Minister on a trip to Balmoral next month, and stay overnight. she will meet the Queen, almost as though she were the third Mrs Johnson.
Yet, on the other hand, she appeared on Friday at a conference at rutland Water on her own account. almost no one could object to her speech, in which she condemned the bloody trophy hunting of puffins in Iceland.
Much more contentiously, though, she appeared at the event alongside the controversial environmentalist and media celebrity Chris Packham, who in large swathes of rural Britain is looked upon as not greatly preferable to Beelzebub.
earlier this year, Mr Packham’s pressure group Wild Justice mounted a legal challenge which led to an organisation called Natural england revoking some general licences. these had allowed farmers and conservationists to shoot birds viewed as pests, such as crows, magpies and pigeons.
Until the then environment secretary Michael Gove overturned the order in June, many farmers were in a state of uproar. they were forbidden to protect their crops and vulnerable smaller livestock from the depredations of these birds.
In more ways than one, Mr Packham is widely regarded in rural communities as a bit of a pest himself. Despite the 2004 ban on fox hunting, he continues to inveigh against the practice on the grounds that foxes are occasionally chased and domestic animals (extremely rarely, it must be said) killed by hounds. He has ridiculously compared hunting to slavery.
Meanwhile, Wild Justice and Mr Packham are training their sights on the shooting of pheasants, and have asked the Government to review the impact of releasing millions of these non-native birds into the countryside. they are thought to have been introduced into Britain at least 1,000 years ago. If his past escapades are anything to go by, Mr Packham may be gearing up for a jihad on pheasant shooting which should go down well in Jeremy Corbyn’s boudoir but will appal millions of country folk.
Doubtless many young metropolitan people, including perhaps the 31-year-old Carrie symonds herself, will find themselves drawn to Mr Packham’s various crusades, in which the interests and preferences of farmers are not taken very seriously.
Granted, Carrie merely sat on the same platform as Mr Packham, and we don’t know whether she endorses his views.
But we do know that she is a keen environmentalist who is said, for example, to have opened the eyes of her lover to the perils of global warming.
MY point is that many country people who abhor the kind of meddling activism promoted by Wild Justice are tory voters. they would not take kindly to being told what to do, and what not to do, by the wife of a Conservative Prime Minister. a consort must not be divisive.
except that Carrie is not yet married to Boris – and there’s the rub.
that position is still occupied by Marina Wheeler, Boris’s second wife, who is in the throes of divorcing her husband of 26 years, and has just recovered from a cancer scare.
I wonder, by the way, what she makes of her successor occupying the limelight that should by rights have been hers.
Having supported Boris as he clambered up the greasy pole, and forgiven his many excursions, she can’t be overjoyed to watch her successor centre-stage.
Carrie seems a principled, clever and committed person. But she should be aware that while she is installed in No 10 – or, more precisely, the flat above No 11, where she and Boris reside – she can no longer say or do whatever she likes.
Perhaps the lesson of this tale is that if Boris is going to stick with Carrie, he had better marry her as soon as the law allows, in which case she would be formally constrained by the convention that spouses of Prime Ministers must mind their Ps and Qs.
the Queen is a broad-minded lady, but morally traditionalist too, like many of her subjects.
I daresay she would also be relieved if, the next time she extended an invitation to Balmoral, it was to Mr and Mrs Johnson.