No mother-in-law jokes, Boris! Carrie’s mum moves into No10 to help with baby
BORIS JOHNSON’S future motherin-law has been visiting Downing Street t o help l ook after her baby grandson Wilfred, it emerged last night.
Carrie Symonds’ mother Josephine McAffee has reportedly formed a ‘household bubble’ with her daughter and the Prime Minister to provide childcare. She is said to be helping to look after eightmonth-old Wilfred in the spacious flat above 11 Downing Street.
Mr Johnson, 56, and Ms Symonds, 32, became the first unmarried couple to occupy Downing Street when they moved in in July 2019. They announced their engagement last February and Wilfred was born on April 29 last year at University College Hospital, London.
Under lockdown rules, people can form a support bubble with another household of any size if they live on their own or if their household includes a child who was aged one or under on December 2 last year.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson declined to comment on the claims in the Sunday Telegraph. A spokeswoman for Miss Symonds also said she would not comment on the arrangements, ‘given that Carrie’s mother is a private individual’.
Miss Symonds, an environmental campaigner and former director of communications at the Conservative Party, is the youngest partner of a Prime Minister in 174 years.
She was born in London in 1988, the child of Ms McAffee, a lawyer at the Independent newspaper, and the newspaper’s co-founder Matthew Symonds. Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson was named after Boris’s grandfather, while Carrie Symonds’ grandfather is the inspiration behind his first middle name. Nicholas is a tribute to NHS doctors Nick Price and Nick Hart, who treated the Prime Minister when he contracted coronavirus last year.
Last month The Mail on Sunday published adorable pictures of the Prime Minister’s son putting the finishing touches to a painting that was later sent to an 89-year-old with Parkinson’s disease as part of a charity scheme.
Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds followed in the footsteps of David Cameron, his wife Samantha and their children by opting to live in the more spacious apartment above No 11 rather than ‘above the shop’ at No 10.
The couple also have a Jack Russell rescue dog, Dilyn.