The wizarding world of Carrie Symonds
All of this would ordinarily be the league of schoolyard gossip, but if reports are true, they are the actions of someone who is running our country.
Following consistent press reports that the Prime Minister's girlfriend is significantly involved in the government of the United Kingdom, the Bow Group has called for an inquiry into her past and continued involvement in governing Britain. It has led to a rather curious series of events over the last 48 hours, or business as usual if you are familiar with the wizarding world of Carrie Symonds.
Our Senior Research Fellow Nic Conner made the request to me to call for the inquiry, following growing concerns he had over the way dismissals of Number 10 staff were being handled, and by whom. The matter in fact appears to go far deeper than that, and extends to questions over national security, government policy, and the use of taxpayer's money.
As Ms. Symonds has no role in government, she is not accountable to anyone, and therefore cannot legally hold any powers to govern.
I felt Nic was absolutely right that the time had come to act, as I have personally warned against the pernicious influence of Ms. Symonds in public life since 2015, when I exposed the Tatler Tory scandal at CCHQ, her then place of work, and subsequently became a witness into the inquiry into it. Ms. Symonds then left CCHQ following further accusations of bullying and serious financial malfeasance.
Now she isn't even accountable to the Conservative Party, and yet appears to be making major decisions that affect the whole country. If she did have an official role in the government, her actions could at least be held to account.
Rather than respond to substantive arguments that have basis in fact, the trademark response of Ms. Symonds is to use her friends to dig up dirt or make it up to smear those in her way, and this is what she has done again, and with especially frantic and bizarre claims.
Her representatives told the Mail on Sunday that I bore a grudge against her due to her actions in 2015, and thus inadvertently admitted that she was behind smears levelled at me then, baselessly calling me a homophobe, and then attempts to suspend me as a Conservative Party member. Rather amusingly at the time I was not a member of the Conservative Party, so could no more be suspended from it than Nigel Farage.
Her friend Kate Hind then wrote a piece for the Mail on Sunday yesterday, which accused me of being a sexist and misogynist for questioning her constitutional powers. I would encourage anyone to read it, as it is perhaps the weakest piece of journalism ever uttered to paper.
Carrie’s press brigade seems particularly keen on accusing people of being homophobes, racists, and sexists without foundation, which is a tactic that wouldn't be out of place on the screeching front lines of Antifa. The fact that her boyfriend the Prime Minister has previously called black people ‘piccaninnies with watermelon smiles’, gay men ‘tank-topped bumboys’ and encouraged men to ‘pat women on the bottom’ seems to have escaped their attention. Boris may well have been joking in those comments, but if you are in the game of throwing around isms, phobes, and ists, Ms. Symond's own household might be a better place to start.
All of this would ordinarily be the league of schoolyard gossip, but if reports are true, they are the actions of someone who is running our country. It offers a terrifying insight into the toxic environment that is now Downing Street, and the total dysfunction and venom may be amusing, if it wasn't so serious. It is no surprise that highly regarded people like Oliver Lewis decided to call it a day rather than work among the wreckage of government.
This behaviour and the long track record of it demonstrates that Ms. Symonds should never have been allowed to get anywhere near government, but it is essential that the farce is stopped before it does irreparable damage to our democracy. We will continue to call for that, whatever names Ms. Symonds dreams up to screech at us to distract from it.
