Carrie Symonds is no ordinary Prime Ministerial consort

A quick Google search of Carrie Symonds’ name will result in a steady stream of pieces over the past few weeks about the Prime Minister’s girlfriend. So steady, in fact, one might even think it was deliberately coordinated, given the frequency with which she appears in the press, and the overwhelmingly positive spin each drip-fed post presents.

You wouldn’t really expect anything less — Symonds is, after all, a professional in these matters, and despite the generally poor PR the Tory party has received in the ten years she worked for them, one has to assume it would have been significantly worse had she not been good at her job.

But the way she has been elevated from spinner and Westminster bubble regular to a household name should be met with a fair bit of scepticism.

Spouses have always wielded influence over prime ministers. Why wouldn’t they? It would hardly make for a partnership of equals had Cherrie Blair kowtowed to her husband’s every whim, or had Dennis Thatcher remained steadfastly mute as his wife rode roughshod over him as she did her ministers.

They have, too, garnered a respectable amount of public attention, though perhaps as much because people like to gossip and gawp as anything else. I’m sure Samantha Cameron had plenty to say on tuition fees and Scottish independence, but the papers never cared too much what it was.

Symonds, though, is a different beast. She isn’t just a pretty blonde who will stand there meekly looking delighted and delightful. Hers is a political career ten years already in the making, that now has found the perfect vehicle to fast track itself into the big time. She has a brain, and fully intends to use it. And fully intends for everyone else to know she is using it, too.

Not for nothing have the stories on her been quick to highlight her role in steering the Prime Minister on to a path of environmentally friendly conservatism. She is, as an article on this site pointed out just yesterday, the new face of modern conservatism — one that aims to win back young voters by appealing to the things they care about, of which the environment is top of the agenda. That’s quite a position for one so young, and quite so unelected, to find themselves in.

At the same time, she has also been credited, at least in part, with the increasingly tough stance being taken on violent crime, and harsher punishments being meted out to offenders — a cornerstone of appealing to Tory heartlands. It is important that her role in these things is known to the public, both for her own image and that of the Prime Minister’s. The public needs to know that Boris Johnson can be trusted on key issues, having been, frankly, the least trustworthy of an exceptionally untrustworthy generation of politicians.

How do we know he can be trusted on these issues? Because Carrie Symonds will make sure he keeps his promises on them. That is another key part of the story — this one, after all the previous women, is the one we are constantly told by ‘sources close to Carrie/the couple/Number Ten’ he is giddy for, is a changed man because of, and is desperate to settle down with. It is one thing to hear of a government whipping its MPs into line, quite another to hear of a PM being whipped into line by his own woman. Boris Johnson would sell out anyone to save his political neck, but surely won’t betray the girl who holds another part of his anatomy in a vice.

It has been a skilfully woven PR exercise, creating this image of Carrie Symonds. But a word of caution must be noted. Yes, governments are always helped along by unelected advisors. But Symonds, if you will pardon the expression, straddles that realm alongside their private life. It is rare for leaders to have partners with quite as much public clout as Symonds is already accruing for herself — not just with the PM, but the wider Tory Party and press, too.

Not for nothing have counter stories begun to emerge of other figures in the party voicing their concern at the amount of influence this person wields. The former Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre, wrote in an amusing diary entry for the Spectator of his suspicions over the motives of ‘her upstairs’ a few weeks ago.

We must take care to remember that she is an ambitious, politically driven individual, who through patronage, rather than the ballot box, has landed herself a plum seat. That is not to say she will not be a force for good — the issues she has chosen to engage in have struck all the right notes so far — but in an age when reforming politics to be more democratic is the theme, it doesn’t sit well to know this.

Take with a pinch of salt the freshwater creek of favourable Carrie Symonds stories that will continue to flow your way. She’s a very good PR, after all.