The Vanishing Boris and Carrie Story

Despair
Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson (1887-1941)
Photo Credit: Glasgow Life Museums 
[CC BY-NC-ND]

...On Saturday, the Times reported claims that Boris Johnson had tried to hire his now wife as his chief of staff [a salary of £100,00]  when he was foreign secretary. But almost as soon as the article hit the printers, it was withdrawn, without explanation or clarification.

The piece, written by veteran lobby journalist Simon Walters appeared on page five of some early print copies of Saturday's Times newspaper but was dropped for later editions. It does not appear that the article was ever published on the Times' website.

...Walters told the Guardian: "I stand by the story. I went to all the relevant people over two days. Nobody offered me an on the record denial and Downing St didn't deny it off the record either."

Times journalists were baffled by the decision to withdraw the story, with multiple sources suggesting there had been a high level intervention to remove it.

...MailOnline rewrote the Times' story about the proposed government job for Carrie Johnson in the early hours of Saturday morning but has since also deleted its article without explanation or an editor's note. News aggregation sites have also deleted their copies of the MailOnline article.

Alastair Campbell, the former No 10 directer of communications under Tony Blair, tweeted that the disappearance of the story appeared to be "further evidence that much of our media is essentially an extension of the press office of a liar and a crook".

(Rowena Mason, Jim Waterson, The Guardian, 2022)

(I think this is only the beginning and more will follow!) 

Thirteen Hours Later

Carriegate: Number 10 admits pressurising The Times to drop the Carrie Johnson story.

(Andrew Woodcock, The Independent, 2022)

Nineteen hours later

Downing St has admitted there were conversations between Number 10 and The Times, after the newspaper dropped a report that claimed Boris Johnson tried to appoint his now wife to a Government role when he was Foreign Secretary. 

(Sophie Wingate, The Evening Standard, 2022)

Two Days Later

Correspondence exists confirming that Boris Johnson attempted to secure a senior role for his then-girl-friend Carrie Symonds  at the Foreign Office in 2019, a source has said, amid growing calls for an inquiry.

The source, who worked with Johnson at the time, said Symonds - now Carrie Johnson - had never progressed as far as formally applying for the job.

But they claimed Johnson, then the foreign secretary, had repeatedly pressed for her to be picked for the senior taxpayer-funded job, a fact reflected in internal documentation from the period that could be examined by an inquiry.

...The chair of the House of Commons standards committee, Chris Bryant, called yesterday for the "paper trail" surrounding the issue to be published.

"It is manifestly corrupt to appoint your lover as a Spad [special adviser]," he wrote on Twitter..

(Heather Stewart, Aubrey Allegretti, The Guardian, 2022)

Prime Minister's Questions

...Johnson fuelled speculation that he attempted to install Carrie Johnson, now his wife, as his chief of staff when foreign secretary after he declined to comment on the allegations at prime minister's questions.

Asked about reports that he tried to get her appointed to a Foreign Office job, and to other roles including one with a royal charity, Johnson simply ignored the subject. The Labour MP Chris Elmore asked Johnson: "Has he ever considered the appointment of his current spouse to a government post or to any organisation in the working of the royal households? Be honest, prime minister, yes or no?"

Johnson replied: "I know why the party opposite wants to talk about nonexistent jobs in the media. Because they don't want to talk about what is going on in the real world." He then went on to discuss employment statistics.

(Rowena Mason, Peter Walker, The Guardian, 2022)