Members of the Prime Minister's team intervened after a newspaper report said he wanted to hire Carrie Johnson for a Foreign Office job, Downing Street has confirmed. Boris Johnson had sought to appoint his now wife, who was known as Carrie Symonds at the time, as chief of staff when he was Foreign Secretary, early copies of The Times on Saturday stated.
However, later editions of the newspaper did not include the story, which had previously been reported in Lord Ashcroft's biography of Mrs Johnson. No10 sources said the story was "grubby and discredited", while Mrs Johnson said the claim was "totally untrue", the Mirror reports.
An official spokesman for the Prime Minster confirmed that members of Mr Johnson's team spoke to The Times before and after the story's publication, but added the PM himself had not been involved. He said: "I think my political colleagues over the weekend made clear that the story is not true, as has Mrs Johnson's spokesperson."
