Daily Mail - 19.08.2019

Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 19

T

He problem for Carrie Sy-

monds, 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-mari-

tal 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 Fri-

day 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 contro-

versial environmentalist and media celebrity

Chris Packham, who is 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 conservation-

ists 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 vul-

nerable smaller livestock from the depreda-

tions of these birds.

In more ways than one, Mr Packham is

Carrie will meet Queen

She’ll be first unmarried partner

of sitting PM to stay at Balmoral

Why she must

tread carefully

now she’s the

PM’s consort

CARRIe Symonds is expected to

meet the Queen as she accompa-

nies Boris Johnson when he stays

at Balmoral next month.

Sources said the Prime Minister’s girl-

friend, 31, will join him on the tradi-

tional weekend stay at the monarch’s

Scottish estate, where they will enjoy

an informal barbecue.

every year, the Queen spends the sum-

mer at Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire,

where she is joined by other members of

the Royal Family, and traditionally

hosts the Prime Minister for a weekend

in September.

It is thought that Miss Symonds will be

the first unmarried partner of a sitting

Prime Minister to stay at Balmoral.

Former prime minister David Cameron

once said that there was not much ‘chillax-

ing’ – chilling out and relaxing – at the cas-

tle, with the royals spending their time tak-

ing part in outdoor pursuits.

And eco-campaigner Miss Symonds –

who last week gave a speech about protect-

ing the environment – may find herself at

odds with the royals, whose pastimes

famously include blood sports. The public

relations expert, who lives in Downing

Street with Mr Johnson, 55, resigned as

director of communications for the Con-

servatives last year and is now a senior

adviser at Oceana, a US-based environ-

mental campaign group.

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher

reportedly found her stay at Balmoral pain-

ful, with an observer writing that a ‘week-

end in the country with aristocrats who

enjoy riding, shooting, sports and games is

Thatcher’s idea of torture’. While Cherie

Blair revealed in her autobiography how

her son Leo was conceived at Balmoral

when she left her contraception at home

out of embarrassment during her stay there

with then-PM husband Tony.

At royal residences, servants meticulously

unpack luggage for guests and Mrs Blair

wrote: ‘In 1998 – I had been extremely dis-

concerted to discover that everything of

mine had been unpacked.

‘not only my clothes, but the entire con-

tents of my distinctly ancient toilet bag

with its range of unmentionables.

‘This year I had been a little more circum-

spect, and had not packed my contracep-

tive equipment out of sheer embarrass-

ment. As usual up there, it had been bitterly

cold, and what with one thing

and another...’

[email protected]

By Larisa Brown

Political Correspondent

widely regarded in rural commu-

nities 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 occasion-

ally 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 mil-

lions of these non-native birds into

the countryside. They are thought

to have been introduced into Brit-

ain at least 1,000 years ago.

If his past escapades are any-

thing to go by, Mr Packham may

be gearing up for a jihad on pheas-

ant shooting which should go

down well in Jeremy Corbyn’s

boudoir but will appal millions of

country folk.

Doubtless many young metro-

politan 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 prefer-

ences of farmers are not taken

very seriously.

Granted, Carrie merely sat on

the same platform as Mr Pack-

ham, and we don’t know whether

she endorses his views. But we

do know that she is a keen envi-

ronmentalist who is said, for

example, to have opened the

eyes of her lover to the perils of

global warming.

M

Y 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 Con-

servative Prime Minister. A con-

sort must not be divisive.

except that Carrie is not yet mar-

ried 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 divorc-

ing 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 con-

strained 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.

Crusaders: Carrie Symonds with Chris Packham at the Birdfair conference

last week. She wore an eco-friendly Liberty print dress, right

By Stephen

Glover

COMMENTARY