Who exactly is the Prime Minister’s wife? To some, she’s Carrie Antoinette, the extravagant demander of gold wallpaper who spent lockdown ambushing her unsuspecting husband with parties and cake. To others, she’s a young wife and new mum under attack by sexist patriarchs intent on ousting Boris from No. 10.
Our national obsession with Carrie Johnson knows no bounds. The latest round of intrigue comes courtesy of Lord Ashcroft and his new book, First Lady. The title alone wryly signals Carrie has overstepped the mark into a starring role that is fundamentally un-British. Its shocking contents detail alleged incidents of behind-the-scenes interference, from ‘impersonating’ Boris in text messages to whispered briefings during phone calls.
In response, a spokesman for Carrie has declared Lord Ashcroft’s book to be full of ‘vile fabrications’ and Boris has pointed the finger of blame at ‘disgruntled former No. 10 advisers’. Meanwhile, Sajid Javid took time away from calculating NHS waiting lists to announce that the PM’s wife ‘should be off limits’. He said claims that Carrie interferes in government business are ‘sexist’. Carrie is a victim of ‘political slut shaming’, declared the columnist and ex-wife of Michael Gove, Sarah Vine.
Our national obsession with Carrie Johnson inadvertently exposes a far deeper problem
Forget pronoun badges, vegan sausage rolls or outdoor mask-wearing: it’s Carrie Johnson who truly divides the nation. An in/out referendum on the Prime Minister’s marriage now seems the only way to escape from our current impasse.
Until a week ago, I was a committed leaver. And I had no need of Lord Ashcroft’s ‘insights’ to persuade me of Carrie’s unwarranted interference. Her high-profile appearance at a Stonewall fringe event at Conservative party conference achieved that. Allegations that she may have ‘had something to do’ with the decision to airlift cats and dogs from Kabul – claims which have been denied – sealed the deal. How dare this unelected, out-of-touch young woman, wield such power, I fulminated.
But every new anti-Carrie revelation is nudging me to change my mind. It’s not that I suddenly think we should all rent posh frocks and spend our days consulting with interior designers over how best to rid ourselves of John Lewis furniture nightmares. And it’s not as if I’ve fallen for the ‘just a mum’ line. Carrie is a shrewd operator who forged a successful career for herself within the Conservative party machinery long before catching Boris’s roving eye. It’s suggesting she’s a naive wife that is sexist – not acknowledging her political prowess.
No, what’s made me ditch the Lady Macbeth comparisons is not conversion to #TeamCarrie but, well, boredom. I’ve stopped caring. It’s not Mrs Johnson we should be bothered about but Mr Johnson. It’s what Boris thinks that matters, not his wife’s latest pet cause. Carrie may or may not be a mistress of manipulation but that shouldn’t matter one jot. We have parliament, and cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister himself all standing between Carrie and government policy. Don’t we?
I maintained my ‘power behind the throne’ delusion because ditching it required taking on board a far more troubling realisation. Our national obsession with Carrie Johnson inadvertently exposes a far deeper problem: the intellectual, political and moral vacuum at the heart of No. 10. We worry about what Carrie thinks because we still have so little idea as to what Boris thinks.
After two years and goodness knows how many resets, we are still no nearer to knowing what Johnson’s Conservative party actually stands for. We have had slogans – ‘levelling up’, ‘build back better’ – but without the substance. Brexit was indeed done, but it was ticked off a perfunctory list without any sense of why it mattered or what Britain could become. We stayed out of a second Christmas lockdown seemingly despite, not because of, the Prime Minister’s wishes. Where there should be vision we find only references to Peppa Pig or the Lion King, indicators that we shouldn’t take Boris seriously because he can’t take himself seriously. The Johnson regime’s only firmly-held policy commitment seems to be to Net Zero – the dire financial implications of which are only just becoming clear.
Carrie’s defenders point to the fact that she is so much younger than our 57 year-old Prime Minister who has been round the block as both a politician and a journalist. How could she possibly influence him, they decry. Yet despite Boris’s years of experience in the fray, he has few discernible principles. Everything seems up for negotiation. Even his stance on Brexit, let’s remember, required him to write two contrasting essays.
The point is, if we had a clear sense of Boris’s vision it would not matter in the slightest what Carrie thinks about anything. It’s because he seems to hold nothing dear that we assume he can be so easily led. But the prospect of a Prime Minister without a plan is terrifying. It’s far easier to laugh at Carrie Antoinette.
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