Boris Johnson’s complicated romantic history

Womanising Boris Johnson has a string of failed relationships to his name.

The philandering MP embarked on at least five extra-marital flings and got at least two of his mistresses pregnant.

When his affair with Carrie Symonds came to light last September, he and his long-suffering wife Marina Wheeler filed for divorce. 

Their daughter Lara Johnson, 26, who is only five years younger than Miss Symonds, reportedly branded her father a ‘selfish b******’.

The spotlight has again fallen on the former foreign secretary’s love life as it as it emerged last night police were called to a domestic disturbance at the home of Mr Johnson and his young girlfriend.

Neighbours of Carrie Symonds – Mr Johnson’s 31-year-old lover – called the police to her south London flat in the early hours of this morning after hearing a loud altercation between the couple. 

Mr Johnson – who once dismissed reports of his cheating as ‘an inverted pyramid of piffle’ – married Oxford University sweetheart Allegra Mostyn-Owen in 1987, but they divorced in 1993 after he cheated on her with Marina.

In 2004, his four-year affair with journalist and society author Petronella Wyatt, the daughter of Labour grandee Lord Wyatt, became public.

She later told how she had an abortion and suffered a miscarriage.

Mr Johnson was sacked from his role as shadow arts minister by then-Tory leader Michael Howard for lying about the relationship. 

Mr Howard’s spokesman said at the time the issue was one of ‘personal morality’.

Two years later, the News of the World reported an affair with journalist Anna Fazackerley, saying Mr Johnson had been seen leaving her London flat.

At the time Miss Wheeler threw her husband out of their home, but the couple later patched things up.

The following year he fathered a child with art consultant Helen Macintyre.

It is understood Miss Wheeler again kicked him out of the family home.

In 2016, Miss Wyatt said: ‘He is inordinately proud of his Turkish ancestry and his views on matters such as monogamy are decidedly Eastern.

‘I find it genuinely unreasonable that men should be confined to one woman,’ he has grumbled to me, and cannot understand the media’s reaction to his personal affairs.’

City lawyer Miss Wheeler, 54, a Cambridge-educated QC and the daughter of veteran BBC correspondent Sir Charles Wheeler, put up with her husband’s infidelity for years.

But last September was the final straw for the mother of the MP’s four older children – Lara, Milo Arthur, 23, Cassia Peaches, 21, and Theodore Apollo, 19. 

Since then, Miss Symonds and her boyfriend have kept a low profile, and been photographed together on only a handful of occasions.

Mr Johnson owns a home in Oxfordshire but has moved into the flat in south London which Miss Symonds bought last year for a little over £650,000 with the help of a mortgage.

At New Year they jointly hosted a discreet party there for close friends, at which they were reported to appear ‘very much in love’.

Miss Symonds is nicknamed ‘Flotus’, short for ‘First Lady of the United States’, the acronym used for the US President’s wife. 

Mr Johnson has reportedly been trying to speed up his divorce so he can move her into Downing Street if he wins the leadership contest.

Miss Symonds and Mr Johnson met in 2012 when Miss Symonds was seconded from Tory HQ to work on Mr Johnson’s campaign to be re-elected London Mayor.

Later, their paths crossed when she worked for Sajid Javid and Michael Gove.

The couple became close when she was promoted to director of communications for the Tories in June 2017, a role which led to her being named as Britain’s second most powerful public relations professional by PR Week magazine.

It is not known when their affair began, but they were spotted dining together at Rules restaurant in Covent Garden on Valentine’s Day last year.

At a wedding of a Tory colleague, Miss Symonds showed off text messages from the then Foreign Secretary.

When the reports reached Downing Street, Theresa May took a dim view, and in the August it was announced Carrie was going to work for the financial company Bloomberg.

But the relationship with Carrie is viewed as the real deal by his friends despite the age gap.

The new couple divide their time between her flat in south London and his home in Oxfordshire, but friends expect Miss Symonds to move into No 10 if Mr Johnson wins the leadership race.

Those who know her best say Miss Symonds – a former director of communications for the Conservative Party – is playing a far greater role in Mr Johnson’s bid for power than many realise.

She suggests ideas for his speeches and his weekly newspaper columns and has persuaded him to support a series of liberal issues – such as campaigns against plastic pollution in the oceans and female genital mutilation.

Friends say Miss Symonds makes Mr Johnson, who is 23 years her senior, blissfully happy, and has brought a new sense of calm to his sometimes boisterous and restless nature.

The couple relax by spending their evenings painting together, a passion that Mr Johnson’s political hero Winston Churchill also enjoyed.

Some of their paintings hang on the walls of her flat in south London.

They both also share a passion for cycling and, for her birthday in March, Mr Johnson bought Miss Symonds a classic £645 hand-made Pashley bicycle complete with wicker basket on the handlebars.

While both are smitten, friends insist some of the more colourful stories about them are false.

‘Those stupid nicknames ‘Bozzie Bear’ and ‘Little Otter’ are utter nonsense,’ said one.

‘They’ve never called each other that. I know Miss Symonds would find that incredibly cringeworthy.’

Sources say Miss Symonds’s ability to effortlessly combine the intense focus required to win a fiercely fought leadership campaign with a playful sense of fun has rubbed off on Mr Johnson, bringing a competency that his political operation once lacked.

Her fine-tuned social skills appear to have also rubbed off on her partner.

Criticised in the past for having few too few meaningful allies on the back benches, Johnson has devoted time to wooing the parliamentary colleagues that he needs to win.

He has also dramatically changed his appearance, sporting a ‘trendy’ haircut, lost weight, quit alcohol and ‘late-night binges of chorizo and cheese’, as well daily bike rides.

These have largely been attributed to Miss Symonds.

‘Get off me. Get out of my flat’: Police are called to Boris Johnson and girlfriend Carrie Symonds’ home after neighbours hear ‘screaming, shouting and banging’ during midnight bust-up

Police were called to a domestic disturbance at the home of Boris Johnson and his young girlfriend last night, rocking the Tory frontrunner’s bid for power. 

Neighbours of Carrie Symonds – Mr Johnson’s 31-year-old lover – called the police to her South London flat in the early hours of this morning after hearing a loud altercation between the couple.

Miss Symonds is said to have been heard screaming and telling the 55-year-old Tory leadership favourite to ‘get off me’ and ‘get out of my flat’.

A recording of the incident reveals Mr Johnson shouted at Miss Symonds to ‘get off my f***ing laptop’ before a loud crashing noise was heard.

A senior Tory MP told MailOnline the episode ‘will not go down well’ with Tory activists. 

Another Tory MP said the revelations would be seriously damaging and gave Jeremy Hunt a ‘big opportunity’. 

Tonight, MPs said Mr Johnson may seek an injunction to suppress any attempt to release the recording. 

Miss Symonds, who Mr Johnson is said to be hoping to marry, was heard complaining that he had spilled red wine on her sofa. She then added: ‘You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.’

The neighbour who recorded the row told The Guardian: ‘There was a smashing sound of what sounded like plates. There was a couple of very loud screams that I’m certain were Carrie and she was shouting to ‘get out’ a lot.

‘She was saying, ”get out of my flat” and he was saying no. And then there was silence after the screaming. My partner, who was in bed half asleep, had heard a loud bang and the house shook.’

The neighbour decided to call 999. Two police cars and a van arrived within minutes, shortly after midnight, but left after receiving reassurances from both the individuals in the flat that they were ‘safe and well’.

A senior MP told Mail Online: ‘Boris is clearly the favourite in this leadership race but four weeks is a very long time in politics.

‘He’s got 16 hustings, all of which are going to be televised… a lot can change.

‘I think a lot of Conservative members are waiting to see the outcome of the debates and things like that.

‘This might well play into their concerns about him. You are talking about Conservative Party activists… there are lots of different types of people.

‘There is a lot of female membership. I’m not sure this kind of thing goes down well.’

Another MP said: ‘You just couldn’t make it up. If the bulk of your members are over 60, most of them have got grandchildren, most of them have settled down, most of them are stable… the activists are going to turn around and say do we really want this guy to be PM? Anybody normal would think that.

‘This guy is going to be PM and all this stuff is going on in his private life – how chaotic is he? If he can’t hold it together at his age, what the hell is going on?

‘This will go on and on. It will damage him.’

The row came just hours after Mr Johnson cemented his position as the runaway favourite to succeed Theresa May as prime minister.

In the final ballot of Tory MPs he received 160 votes, equal to more than half the total.

His lead was so great that senior Tories believe he was able to ‘lend’ votes to Jeremy Hunt in order to knock out his bitter rival Michael Gove. 

On Saturday, he will take part in the first of 16 televised hustings for Tory members in Birmingham.

Mr Johnson is believed to have attended a party fundraising event in Reading yesterday before returning to the flat he has shared with Miss Symonds since leaving his second wife Marina last year.

A spokesman for Mr Johnson has declined to comment on the incident but it now risks adding to concerns among some senior Tories about Mr Johnson’s suitability for the highest office.

It could also raise doubts in the minds of the party’s members, who are older and more socially conservative than the public at large.

Supporters believe that controversy about previous indiscretions, including a string of mistresses, a love child and past dabbling with drugs are ‘priced in’ by those who believe he is the only candidate who can deliver Brexit and restore the party’s fortunes.

But Mr Hunt has made it clear that he aims to make the remaining contest a test of ‘character’.

Asked whether he could defy the odds and win yesterday, Mr Hunt replied ‘absolutely’, adding that the party’s 160,000 members were looking for ‘someone they trust to be prime minster’.

In a statement, Scotland Yard confirmed they were called to Miss Symonds’s flat at 24 minutes past midnight. It went on: ‘The caller was concerned for the welfare of a female neighbour. Police attended and spoke to all occupants of the address, who were all safe and well.

‘There were no offences or concerns apparent to the officers and there was no cause for police action.’ Mr Johnson has said little in public about his relationship with Miss Symonds, a former head of communications for the Conservative Party.

But the couple have grown increasingly close in recent months. Earlier this month she attended his leadership launch, prompting speculation she hopes to move into Number 10 if he succeeds in his bid for power.

He is also said to be hoping to marry Miss Symonds once his divorce to Miss Wheeler, with whom he has four children, has been finalised. The break-up is said to have severely strained relations between Mr Johnson and his children.

Miss Symonds, a glamourous PR executive who friends describe as brilliant and ambitious, is credited with transforming Mr Johnson’s public image.

Under her direction, his famous blond mane has been cropped, he has lost weight and his trademark dishevelled appearance has been replaced by a sharp-suited image.

The incident looks certain to upset Mr Johnson’s carefully choreographed procession into Number 10.

With polls showing he enjoys a commanding lead, the MP has fought shy of media interviews and public appearances, fearing that his campaign could be derailed by a gaffe.

One ally described it as the ‘Ming vase strategy’, likened his position to that of Tony Blair ahead of the 1997 landslide election, which he described as being like ‘carry a Ming vase across a polished marble floor’. 

The incident plays into concerns among MPs that Mr Johnson’s volatile personal life could be a liability, and could be raised in a frantic slew of hustings events the candidates are about to embark on.

Mr Johnson announced he was splitting from second wife Marina Wheeler just before his relationship with Ms Symonds – former media chief at the Conservative Party – became public.

If he succeeds Theresa May, Mr Johnson is likely to earn the dubious record of being the first PM in modern times to divorce while in Downing Street.

Mr Johnson is the hot favourite to win the Tory leadership contest and become the next Prime Minister. 

The frontrunner said it was him and not his challenger Jeremy Hunt who could reverse the fortunes of the Conservative Party after it suffered a bruising set of results in the local and European elections earlier this year.

He made the comment as he and Mr Hunt formally kicked off their battle as they each faced their first grilling by Tory members.

The frontrunner and the self-described ‘underdog’ sought to win over Conservative local authority bosses and councillors today in what was the first of more than a dozen events in front of the party grassroots which the pair will take part in over the next month.

But it is Mr Johnson who is thought to have made the biggest impression as he quoted the British Conservative wartime prime minister who he has written books about. 

‘I’ve never known a time where we got nine per cent in a national election,’ he reportedly said, according to The Sun, as he referred to the Tories’ recent electoral struggles.

‘My message to you today is: the hour is darkest before the dawn. We can turn this thing around.’ 

The support of Tory local government figures will be critical to both men’s hopes of victory and whoever does become PM will be reliant on them to motivate activists and knock on doors. 

Mr Hunt’s and Mr Johnson’s appearance in front of the Local Government Association Conservative Group came after it was claimed that Mr Johnson’s team had warned ministers that failing to publicly back him would destroy their careers. 

The battle to become Prime Minister will see the final two face a gruelling series of 16 hustings across the UK, starting in Birmingham on Saturday, and continuing up and down the country over the next month.

The final outcome of the leadership contest will not be known until the week beginning July 22, with the two remaining candidates taking part in a series of hustings in front of Tory members around the country before the votes are counted.

Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt will also take part in a head-to-head debate on ITV on July 9.  

The broadcaster has promised to ‘get answers to the questions that matter’ in its coverage of the two hopefuls to be the next prime minister.

ITV made the announcement following news that Michael Gove had been knocked out of the leadership race leaving Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt competing for votes from the Tory membership.

It comes after the BBC programme featuring the five would-be PMs has been widely condemned after it emerged one of the ‘ordinary voters’ posting questions was an imam who had previously posted vile tweets about Israel.