Blaming Carrie for Boris Johnson’s failings is pure misogyny

Carrie Johnson is portrayed as a sort of cross between Lady Macbeth, Hyacinth Bucket, and the princess in the fairy tale ‘The Princess and the Pea’ – misogynistically, in other words

Johnson is a grown man, with an overgrown ego, and is able to make his own bad decisions (PA)

Is all this Carrie’s fault? Reflecting on some of the coverage of the influence the current Mrs Johnson enjoys over the prime minister, you’d certainly be forgiven for thinking it. She is portrayed as a sort of cross between Lady Macbeth, Hyacinth Bucket, and the princess in the fairytale “The Princess and the Pea” – misogynistically, in other words.

The myth is building that the reliable, secure, reactionary, old-school libertarian Tory has been captured and moulded by this metropolitan elite temptress, as though she were an agent in a James Bond movie.

Unlike all the others involved, up to and including the cabinet secretary and the chancellor of the exchequer, Carrie Johnson cannot be sacked as part of a clearout of No 10. She always has access to the prime-ministerial ear, into which – according to the fairytale – poison is dripped in between the sweet nothings. If you think about it, it’s mad, but it’s been building for some considerable time.

If you believe Dominic Cummings, for example, you’d believe that “Princess Nut Nut” was forever distracting the prime minister and encouraging him to make and unmake key appointments in Downing Street. Last May, Dom told dismayed MPs that on 12 March 2020, for example, just as the true scale of the Covid-19 pandemic was dawning on Boris Johnson, HRH (Carrie) was causing more mayhem than usual, over their puppy, Dilyn.

“That day, The Times had run a huge story about the prime minister and his girlfriend and their dog. The prime minister’s girlfriend was going completely crackers about this story and demanding that the press office deal with that. So we had this sort of completely insane situation in which part of the building was saying are we going to bomb Iraq? Part of the building was arguing about whether or not we’re going to do quarantine or not do quarantine, the prime minister has his girlfriend going crackers about something completely trivial.”

After that hostile intervention from Johnson’s former assistant, friends of Carrie counter-briefed that Cummings had taken “revenge” on the oversexed rescue dog because it had “humped” his leg. It must have been so difficult for Carrie, having an oversexed husband and an oversexed Jack Russell to look after, never knowing which one of them would go missing or end up in the press for their indiscriminate urges.

Most of the rest of the allegations about Carrie have the same gossipy, inconsequential air to them. It’s just anecdotes – and amusing ones – but the impression is that Carrie has stopped Boris from being a great Conservative prime minister. She’s painted as a pushy, selfish, spoilt brat who browbeats Johnson into turning Britain into a fluffy, green paradise of wokeishness. If only...

Lord Ashcroft, who has a nice side-hustle in sensational books about his fellow Tories, has much more in his latest volume, First Lady: Intrigue at the Court of Carrie and Boris Johnson. Here’s an excerpt in which her role in Johnson’s 2019 leadership election campaign is discussed by a “source”: “We learned pretty quickly there was a culture of fear around touching anything that Carrie didn’t like. There was a nervousness. I think the people who are close to her and align with her get great benefits. Those who idolise her might get a fantastic job out of it. If she doesn’t like you, there can be big consequences.

“There was a previous episode when Carrie worked at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. A colleague was another young woman, Mimi Macejkova, but she left her post within a few months of John Whittingdale becoming secretary of state. He said Macejkova ‘didn’t gel with the others’ in his team. She was replaced by a friend of Carrie.

“Later, Carrie’s closest friends settled into jobs as top aides to Johnson. One was Henry Newman, who was once described by her as one of her ‘favourite people’. Another was Josh Grimstone, who now works for Michael Gove. A third was Allegra Stratton, appointed Johnson’s No 10 press spokesman after it was reported that he’d said: ‘Carrie will kill me if Allegra doesn’t get the job.’”

So there you go. If you trace Partygate back to the original leaked video of Stratton at the mock press conference, laughing in despair at the blatant breach of lockdown rules, and getting Allegra in to do the televised briefings was Carrie’s idea, then it is indeed Carrie, indirectly, who is to blame for this whole sorry, career-ending business.

The implication often appears to be that had Johnson stayed with his wife Marina Wheeler, and not been seduced by the succubus Carrie Symonds, all would have been well and orderly in his premiership.

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It’s nonsense. Tempting nonsense, but nonsense all the same. Johnson is a grown man, with an overgrown ego, and is able to make his own bad decisions. He is an intelligent man, in a sort of way; quite cunning on his own account, capable of creating deceits of his own, and of making ridiculous appointments – I offer Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries and Priti Patel, and indeed Magic Dom, as exhibits.

He needs no one’s help to screw up a speech, as he proved at the CBI conference when he just wandered away into Peppa Pig World. It was his idea, and his alone, to exhume Jimmy Savile and chuck the corpse at the Labour front bench. Like his father Stanley, he fears climate change, but Boris Johnson is a convert and never took much notice of what his old dad told him about the dying planet.

Still, let’s suppose that Carrie has a “hold” on him. It’s not magical. If Johnson is so weak that he is able to be pushed around by advisers, colleagues, friends, and, indeed, his wife or family, then that’s down to him, not them. If he’s too lazy to argue, or wants to blame his wife for things he finds it irksome to do or say, then that’s his fault, not hers.

Wheeler, supposedly the exemplar, was his wife throughout his time as editor of The Spectator, as a backbench MP, as mayor of London and as foreign secretary, and he was as chaotic, careless and mendacious in those jobs as he is as prime minister. She supported him, just as Carrie has, and no doubt talked to him about things, and put up with a lot; but she couldn’t stop him from doing what the hell he wanted. That, you see, is the problem. It’s Boris. Not Carrie.