Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds announced their engagement on Saturday evening, adding that they are expecting a baby in early summer, setting up Johnson to be the first prime minister to divorce and marry while in office.
Johnson and his second wife, Indian-origin Marina Wheeler, are at an advanced stage of divorce. They reached a financial settlement earlier this month as a precursor to the formalisation of their divorce.
Johnson, 55, and Symonds, 31, moved into Downing Street when he became prime minister in July 2019.
It will be Johnson’s third marriage; he first married Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987; it was annulled in 1993. He then married Wheeler in 1993, with whom he had four children.
In a post on her Instagram account with an image with Johnson, Symonds wrote: “Many of you already know but for my friends that still don’t, we got engaged at the end of last year… and we’ve got a baby hatching early summer. Feel incredibly blessed.”
A former Conservative Party communications chief, Symonds was first romantically linked to Johnson by the media in early 2019, but her association goes back to when she worked on his successful re-election bid as London mayor in 2012.
Both former prime ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron had children while in Downing Street.
