Carrie Johnson is a fascinating woman. An undoubtedly complex character, inspiring fierce loyalty from some and equally fierce loathing in others, she wields an influence unlike any previous British prime minister’s wife and arguably represents a new archetype of female power. But if Michael Ashcroft’s thoroughly unauthorised biography of her is to be believed, she only really got interesting when she met her husband.
Her old headteacher reports that “she didn’t stand out” and there is little memorable to say about her student years. Politically, an early boyfriend describes a “fairly blank canvas”, who fell into working for the Tory MP Zac Goldsmith (her springboard to a press officer job at party headquarters and subsequent special adviser gig) largely because of a shared passion for animal welfare. The one character who really comes alive in the early chapters is her father, Matthew Symonds, co-founder of the Independent newspaper, accused of brandishing packets of condoms in morning conference – a way, one ex-colleague suggests, of letting everyone know that despite being married he was still having lots of sex – and trying to wangle his mistress Josephine McAffee a job on the paper. When Carrie was born as a result of this affair, he financially supported and spent time with his daughter, but didn’t leave his wife. Something here sounds uncannily familiar, but if there are intriguing parallels between the absent father and the married ex-journalist two decades her senior who Carrie eventually fell for, Ashcroft isn’t the writer to explore them. His real interest isn’t in making sense of her character but in how he thinks she shaped a Conservative government.
Here the book appears to rely heavily on the accounts of her enemies, although in fairness, that may not be for want of trying to interview her friends (access to her inner circle is strictly controlled). Most readers are now familiar with the story of the power struggle inside Downing Street between a young, liberal clique loyal to Carrie and the former Vote Leave advisers Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain, which ended in victory for her. But Ashcroft helpfully traces these tensions back to their original roots, well before she entered No 10. In his telling, she first clashed with Cain when he was working for Johnson at the Foreign Office; she earned the now notorious nickname “Princess Nut Nut” for supposedly meddling in her lover’s run for the Tory leadership, and froze out his election guru Lynton Crosby during the 2019 election campaign. All these grievances were carried into power, with predictable consequences under pressure.
There is an extraordinary bitterness to the extensive verbatim quotes, from heavily disguised anonymous sources, that follow. Carrie is portrayed as something of a spoiled princess, insecure and vengeful and lacking in “intellectual depth”. Worse, she has entrapped Boris in such an “emotionally disruptive relationship” that he seems actively scared of her. Similar claims have been aired before, not least by Cummings, but the charge here that there’s “something not right” about Carrie is a serious one. Yet it goes virtually unquestioned. Whoever his source is, Ashcroft apparently considers them beyond reproach.
Carrie, we’re told, just isn’t up to the standards of the last wife; while Marina Wheeler organised his home life to perfection, Carrie is “demanding rather than supplying. I think it’s the biggest explanation of the dysfunctionality inside Number 10... Marina was his wife but she was also in some respects a mother figure to him.” This third marriage, our anonymous friend adds, is a “Greek tragedy” in which the great potential of a man we have just been told can’t manage his own laundry has been squandered “‘because of her”.
The sexism rankles, obviously. But so does the way some big questions are left hanging. Is a man this chaotic actually capable of running a country? Was it really his wife’s job to organise him, or a chief of staff’s? Might the Downing Street operation take some responsibility itself for the chaos of the Downing Street operation? Yet the author largely contents himself with transcribing his mysterious but strangely familiar-sounding Deep Throat at length, before concluding gravely that while “I know that the buck stops with [Johnson], the evidence I have gathered suggests his wife’s behaviour is preventing him from leading Britain as effectively as the voters deserve”.
Feminist qualms aside, the most puzzling thing about all this is the leap from the first half of the book to the second. Carrie Johnson is depicted as a kind of glittering she-devil, with a mystical hold over her husband and the skills to outwit veteran political campaigners. How Carrie Symonds, the unmemorable schoolgirl turned very middle-ranking special adviser, morphed suddenly into this creature of semi-mythical powers remains unclear. Should the book not seek to explain this, if only to avoid cynical readers concluding that it’s mostly another vehicle for the Vote Leave lot to work through their feelings about being dumped by Boris Johnson? Diana, Princess of Wales famously said that her marriage involved three people and so felt a bit crowded. With the Johnsons, it seems more like half an office-full. Maybe the real Carrie simply got lost in the crowd.
First Lady: Intrigue at the Court of Carrie and Boris Johnson by Michael Aschroft is published by Biteback (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
