Boris, Carrie, baby Wilfred and Dilyn the dog: the inside story in No. 10

We’ve all struggled with being confined to our homes for  the past year. But what has it been like for Carrie and Boris? Freddy Gray peeks through the keyhole of Britain’s most  famous door and discovers cabin fever, opaque political machinations and pets with sinister energy
Michelle Thompson
Freddy Gray26 May 2021

For all his apparent conviviality, the  Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a bit of a loner. 

He doesn’t have a gang in politics  in the way that his predecessors Tony Blair or David Cameron did. He doesn’t really  do friendships.  His fiancée Carrie Symonds is, by contrast, highly social. She’s a Westminster operator, an iPhone-addict and a party girl. In pandemic-riven 2021, the British elite doesn’t have anything akin to the Chipping Norton Set — that network of political, media and celebrity people which dominated the Britpop-to-Brexit years. The closest approximation today would be ‘the Carrie Crew’, the pals and allies of the PM’s girlfriend who find themselves growing in influence as the Johnson years go on.

Still, it must be annoying for Symonds, having so acrobatically ascended the greasy pole, to find herself on top in the horribly anti-social age of Covid. Symonds is a mother now to Wilfred Johnson but she isn’t domestic by nature. She likes going out drinking with friends. She likes dancing and hugging, which are now pretty much illegal. She likes ordering Negronis and fizz and oysters in bars and restaurants. Yet she is stuck at home staring at her phone like everyone else. 

Boris, Carrie and Wilfred on a Zoom call
Andrew Parsons/No10 Downing St

‘She’s an extrovert who’s been forced to be indoors,’ says a friend. Symonds’ mother, Josephine McAfee, has joined Johnson and Symonds’ ‘household bubble’ to help look after baby Wilf and the dog Dilyn. Happily for Symonds, she gets on very well with her mother — the two of them are said to be ‘thick as thieves’. 

But this set-up can hardly be what Symonds dreamed life would be like when she shacked up with the future prime minister. And what must the poor PM think — living in a bubble with his soon-to-be mother-in-law as the world collapses? Leadership isn’t all it is cracked up to be.

Symonds and Johnson are living in the residential flat in Number 11 Downing Street, traditionally the chancellor’s residence, instead of Number 10. All prime ministers have lived in Number 11 since Tony Blair swapped with Gordon Brown in 1997, to help accommodate Blair’s larger family. ‘It’s a bit unfair on Rishi,’ says one Westminster source today. ‘He’s stuck in Number 10 with his two young children, while Carrie and Boris live it large in Number 11 with one baby and a dog.’ No complaints from Rishi, mind. He’s happy anywhere as long as he can get away from Dilyn the dog, of whom he’s said not to be a fan. Irritatingly for the Chancellor, his children have fallen in love with Dilyn, meaning the Sunaks might soon find themselves investing in a lockdown puppy.

Dilyn the dog is a surprising source of controversy in the corridors of power. Symonds insists she adores him, contrary to what you might have read, and Johnson does too — at least judging from some official photographs. But Dilyn rubs some politicos up the wrong way. ‘People who normally like dogs just find him unnerving,’ says one insider. ‘He’s got this slightly sinister energy.’ Some Number 10 staffers are nervous that if they don’t show the mutt enough affection they will fall out of favour, which seems barking mad.

Boris and Carrie clap for carers outside Number 10
PA

Symonds and Johnson have been able to do some entertaining in the Number 11 flat, both before the pandemic and in those precious lockdown-free weeks in the summer and autumn. Guests have said they are struck by how affectionate the couple were towards each other in front of others. ‘Rather excessive public displays of affection,’ whispers one Westminster wag. Others have reported rather uncharitably on the messiness of the flat. Johnson is famously untidy, of course — though the lack of order may have been more down to the fact the couple have still, one and a half years in, not really had a chance to settle in.  

Symonds is a healthy eater. She gets Daylesford Organic delivered and orders takeaway or cook-at-home meals. The Prime Minister, meanwhile, has complained that he couldn’t get a good Thai curry delivered to Number 10 because of the security. The pair are fond of barbecuing and even had a BBQ or two over the summer with the Sunaks. Presumably Dilyn and Rishi warily eyeballed each other over the sausages.

Ever since his near-fatal brush with Covid, Johnson has been trying to eat less and exercise more. Alpha-male to his underpants, he is understood to be intensely proud of the fact his antibodies are far more potent than those of another cabinet Covid-survivor, Matt Hancock. At the same time, the PM is anxious to show the world that he remains fighting fit.

Even before the virus came along, Symonds had forced him to adopt a stricter diet. In 2020, the health fad became an obsession. Johnson has become very fond of his personal trainer, Harry Jameson, a social-media influencer type who boasts 37k Instagram followers. The PM now regards Jameson as an authentic ‘voice of Britain’, I’m told, and is thought to consult him on politics, perhaps as they work out together in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. ‘Never mind those northern “red wall” voters who won the election for him,’ says one insider, caustically. ‘It’s all about the elite personal trainer now!’ People who improve the PM’s health improve their career prospects. Symonds’ buddy Ross Kempsell became Johnson’s tennis partner. Then the Prime Minister hired him for a crucial role working between Number 10 and CCHQ.

Carrie and Dilyn
AFP via Getty Images

Johnson and Symonds had hoped for a fresh start in 2021 after the painful and very public ‘purging’ of senior aides Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain in November. Cain and Cummings, the PM’s closest aides since the Vote Leave campaign in 2016, felt that Symonds had gained far too much influence over the Government. Symonds felt the same way about Cain and Cummings. Johnson, who is averse to confrontation, was torn in the middle. He eventually sided with his girlfriend: bye bye Dom, bye bye Lee. Cleo Watson, head of the PM’s ‘Priorities and Campaigns’, was also kicked out in the ‘Vote Leave cull’ — though she has recently been asked back to help.

Symonds’ allies in the press and on social media were quick to talk up the Number 10 ‘reset’ as a step forward. With Cain and Cummings, Lords of the Dark PR Arts, gone, and a new top press team of Allegra Stratton along with promoted James Slack coming in, the Johnson administration was about to sharpen up its act. Insiders added that Symonds would have more authority now to use her comms skills to shape the Government’s image — out with the nasty populist messaging; in with the positive stories about Boris liberating women by removing VAT from tampons or ‘admonishing’ the Japanese for killing whales.

Boris awaits the outcome of the Brexit deal surrounded by his key members of staff
Andrew Parsons / No10 Downing St

But all the positive spin in the world can’t override the gloom of the pandemic, and the country has anyway moved on from the gushy PR-led era of Blair and Cameron. It’s a particularly challenging and unglamorous time to be in charge, as Symonds and Johnson are finding out. Stratton’s proposed West Wing style media press conferences have been postponed, perhaps until more good news can be found.

The Prime Minister looks worn out and depressed. Relations with his family seem to have soured. The normally loose-lipped Johnson clan is strangely silent when asked about Symonds. It’s understood that the PM’s other children have distanced themselves, though there was an emotional rapprochement when he nearly died in April. Symonds’ normally bubbly personality has seemed flat. Her friends admit that it’s been a tough year. ‘I think she’s quite lonely,’ says one. She apparently spends a lot of time texting. She’s not seen that often inside Number 10, but insiders complain that she spends much of her day sending the Prime Minister messages, often distracting him from tasks at hand. ‘The two of them feel quite caged up in Downing Street,’ says a friend. ‘They get desperate to get away.’ That’s why they take every chance they can to go down to Chequers, the PM’s country residence, where they have more room to breathe. Johnson says that he’s got through the stress of recent months by reading to Wilf at the weekends and by going for walks with Symonds and/or the dog.

Yet the PM’s health drive slipped towards the end of last year as the misery of more lockdowns struck. He is said to have drank more red wine and ate more red meat — much to Symonds’ chagrin. He’s reportedly taken to having the odd restorative afternoon nap, though Downing Street has been quick to deny that story. Still, it would be hard to blame him if he did. The days are bleak. We’re a world away from Chipping Norton.

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