Boris Johnson’s relationship with Carrie Symonds is interesting – but it won’t always be in the public interest

What shall we do with Carrie?

Slightly condescending tone there; not meant to be. What Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds decide is the best way for them to live their lives is actually their business. The Independent (Symonds’ father, Matthew Symonds, was one of the founders) was never going to take a censorious view of what people get up to in their private lives.

We do not, for example, share the antique opinion of the ex-editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, in The Spectator diary: “The Tories, with two women PMs to their credit, have achieved another historic first: scuppering the belief – argued by the Daily Mail in my 26 years as editor – that politicians with scandalous private lives cannot hold high office. I make no comment on this, or about the 31-year old minx who is the current Boris Johnson bedwarmer.”

Minx! There’s a word I’d not seen for a while, let alone bedwarmer, which makes her sound like a Tudor hot water bottle. The preening pomposity of it reminds me of why The Independent exists as a counter to this kind of sanctimonious, sneering moralising.

Still, as my colleague Harriet Hall points out, we are interested in how this very modern relationship plays out in the public domain, if that is where they wish to put it, and how Symonds is described and what role she has in the regime, if any.

We want to do that fairly and without personal intrusion. The Mail, by the way, always took an especially close interest in how Cherie Booth/Blair balanced her time as PM spouse and her legal career, as I remember it. Blair was rarely described as a minx, but she didn’t half upset Richard Littlejohn, the poor old melt.

The only time the Boris-Carrie thing will really matter is if our prime minister’s private life interferes with his job. It is not in the national interest if he is up all night having arguments, or is otherwise badly distracted. But knowing about that would be in the public interest, I suggest, in our current circumstances. He already has two divorces on his hands – his from his wife and the UK’s from the EU. Johnson looks to me to be one of those bustling people who thrives on having too much to do in every sphere of their existence – but there are limits.

Yours

Sean O’Grady

Associate editor