Carry on Carrie: Day IV

It’s a tribute to the geniuses within Downing Street that they’ve managed to take a three-month-old story about a four-year-old incident and make it one of the most-discussed issues in British politics. The story is, of course, a report by the Times that Boris Johnson tried to appoint his then-lover Carrie Symonds as his chief-of-staff at the Foreign Office in 2018. It follows up similar claims made by Lord Ashcroft in his biography of the PM’s wife.

The story was mysteriously removed from later editions of the the Times newspaper on Saturday, as well as being absent from its website. Following an intense backlash, No. 10 yesterday said in a lobby briefing that it had lent on Britain’s paper of record to get the piece pulled. Both the PM’s wife and Downing Street deny the story is true.

Yet that intervention has failed to temper the level of intrigue. Instead, the papers today’s are filled with further claims about Carrie. The Telegraph reports that Johnson’s former ethics adviser Lord Geidt believes the claims are ‘ripe for investigation’ while the Mirror has a story which says Johnson suggested his partner for two other roles: an ambassador to the Cop 26 summit as well as as a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Earthshot prize.

The paper reports that these roles were blocked while Downing Street has denied the claims, saying: ‘The PM has never recommended Mrs Johnson for a government role’. Whether those appointments were at least discussed is a slightly different question to whether there was a formal recommendation.

But just as with the original Times story, there is a sense of déjà vu to all this. In August last year, Dominic Cummings gave an interview to Lynn Barber in which he said that Boris Johnson asked him regarding Carrie: ‘Could we get the cabinet secretary to give her a job on Cop 26, travelling round with Kate Middleton?’ At the time, No. 10 described the claims as ‘risible, like much of Dom’s recent output.’

So what comes next? Given Boris Johnson’s reported desire to give Carrie ‘something to keep her busy’, might serving as Lord Geidt’s replacement be the perfect role for the former head of CCHQ communications? She’d certainly have enough work on her hands…