Here’s everything you need to know about Boris Johnson’s partner Carrie Symonds, who is set to become the only ‘first girlfriend’ in British history

BILL BOSTOCK

• Boris Johnson is to become Britain’s next Prime Minister on Wednesday.
• When he ascends, Johnson will move into 10 Downing Street with his partner, 31-year-old Carrie Symonds.
• It will be the first time a non-married couple have lived in the British leader’s London residence.
• Here’s what we know about Symonds, a former PR-guru for the UK’s Conservative Party and someone who narrowly avoided the clutches of one of the UK’s most notorious sex offenders.

Boris Johnson’s relationship with former Conservative Party PR-guru Carrie Symonds was blown open on June 20, when police were called to a quarrel at their south London apartment.

Here’s what we know about Symonds, who will become the first-ever “first girlfriend” of 10 Downing Street, the UK prime minister’s London residence, if Johnson is elected on Tuesday.

Symonds is the daughter of Matthew Symonds, founder of The Independent newspaper, and Josephine McAffee, one of the paper’s lawyers.

Between 1999 and 2006 Symonds attended Godolphin and Latymer school, a prestigious secondary school in west London. She went on to read theatre studies and history of art at the University of Warwick, graduating with a first class degree in 2009.

Symonds was thrust into the media spotlight in July 2007 when she almost became a victim of serial black cab rapist John Worboys

Symonds was 19 at the time when Worboys picked her up in his taxi from London’s King’s Road after she had been clubbing.In an interview with The Telegraph Symonds told how Worboys convinced her he had won money at the casino gave her champagne.“I felt indebted to him because he had given me a cheap lift home,” she said. “But when I got the glass I secretly poured it on to the floor as I was worried it might be spiked.” Luckily Symonds was able to leave the cab and made it to her front door. “I played the age card and told him I was very young, only 19, and needed to go home.” In 2009 Worboys was convicted off sexually assaulting 12 women.

After several jobs in public affairs, in December 2011 Symonds got a job working on Johnson’s successful 2012 London Mayor re-election campaign.

After that Symonds worked in communications for the Conservative Party, first as head of broadcast and then as a political press advisor.

The job followed roles in the offices of cabinet ministers Sajid Javid and John Whittingdale. In June 2017, she became the party’s director of communications, aged just 29.

In 2018, Symonds was named the 2nd most influential person in UK political communications by PR Week.

Symonds left the Conservative Party in 2018 to head-up Bloomberg’s eco-initiative Vibrant Oceans.

Vibrant Oceans partners with coastal communities, nonprofit organisations, local and national governments, policy makers, and academic groups to advance evidence-based conservation practices and implement data-driven fisheries management policies around the world.

Throughout her time in the Conservative inner circle, Symonds was rumoured to be Johnson’s girlfriend, though it was never officially confirmed.

In September 2018, Johnson confirmed he and his wife, Marina, had split “several months ago.”

Johnson and Symonds’ romance was confirmed on June 20, 2019, when police were called to a quarrel at Symonds’ apartment in Camberwell, south London.

Sounds like a good partner to have. Behind every good man is an equally good woman