Carrie Symonds facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carrie Johnson
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Johnson in 2020
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| Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
| Assumed office 29 May 2021 |
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| Prime Minister | Boris Johnson |
| Preceded by | Marina Wheeler (de jure) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 17 March 1988 London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse(s) |
Boris Johnson (m. 2021)
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| Children | 1 |
| Parents |
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| Relatives |
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| Alma mater | University of Warwick |
Carrie Johnson (née Symonds; born 17 March 1988) is a British political activist, conservationist, and the wife of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson. She had been the first unmarried partner of a prime minister to reside at Downing Street. She works as a senior advisor to the ocean conservation charity Oceana.
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Early life and education
Johnson was born on 17 March 1988 to Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent, and Josephine Mcaffee (née Lawrence), a lawyer working for that newspaper. Her paternal grandfather was John Beavan, Baron Ardwick (at one time editor of the Daily Herald and later, during the 1970s, a Labour Party MEP), and her paternal grandmother was Anne Symonds, a BBC World Service journalist.
Johnson was brought up by her mother in East Sheen, London, and between 1999 and 2006 attended Godolphin and Latymer School, an independent day school for girls. She went on to the University of Warwick, where she studied art history and theatre studies, completing her degree in 2009.
Career and political activism
In 2009, Johnson joined the Conservative Party as a press officer. She worked at Conservative Campaign Headquarters, and later campaigned for Boris Johnson in the 2010 London Conservative Party mayoral selection. She has also worked for Conservative MPs Sajid Javid (as a media special adviser) and John Whittingdale.
Johnson became the Conservative Party's head of communications in 2018, but left the position later that year, taking up a job in public relations for the Oceana project. It was reported that she was asked to leave her post as director of communications after sources claimed party chiefs had said her performance was poor, and questions were raised over significant unjustified expenses claims. These accusations were, however, rejected by other sources as being a smear campaign based around rumours allegedly spread by Johnson's political strategist, Lynton Crosby.
She has been described as a "passionate animal rights defender" and is a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation.
Public and personal life
Johnson was previously in a relationship with British political journalist Harry Cole.
She reportedly began an affair with British politician Boris Johnson, then the Foreign Secretary, in 2018 while he was still married to his second wife, Marina Wheeler. In July 2019, Boris became prime minister and both he and Carrie officially moved into 10 Downing Street. The following month, she was barred from entering the United States as her visa application was rejected due to a previous visit to Somaliland, which the US considers to be part of immigration-restricted Somalia. On 16 August 2019, she made her first public appearance since entering 10 Downing Street, when she addressed what she called the "gigantic" climate crisis.
Concerns over her influence on the prime minister were raised in January 2020, when it came to light that she had received briefs from animal rights activists just before the government pulled a planned cull of badgers in Derbyshire. An association representing farmers, the NFU, asserted that this meeting and her influence played a key role in the government ignoring scientific advice in favour of retaining the cull. According to The Guardian, a judicial review has been granted permission to examine how the decision was reached. She was also allegedly influential in making sure that Lee Cain did not get a job as the prime minister's chief of staff. During Dominic Cummings's tenure as chief adviser, Cummings and Johnson were said to represent two separate factions influencing the prime minister. Cummings later claimed in 2021 that Johnson acted "illegally" in awarding influential jobs to her friends, including press secretary Allegra Stratton.
On 29 February 2020, she and the prime minister announced that they had become engaged in late 2019 and were expecting a baby in mid-2020. Their son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was born on 29 April 2020 at University College Hospital in London. She is a practising Catholic and had Wilfred baptised into the Catholic Church.
She married the prime minister on 29 May 2021 in a secret ceremony at Westminster Cathedral attended by thirty guests. She wore a "Bohemian style" bridal gown by Greek designer Christos Costarellos.
Images for kids
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Symonds and Boris Johnson on Commonwealth Day, March 2020
