Brexit Diary: As BoJo Waffles, Tory ‘Dinosaurs’ Turn on His Fiancée
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Not since the days of Benjamin Disraeli has a prime minister’s wife been cause for such conversation as has Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fiancée. “Is Carrie Symonds really a Downing Street manipulator — or a shrewd supportive partner?” asks the headline in the Times, though the Mirror suggests merely that she has become the prime ministerial hair-dresser who finally tamed the PM’s unruly mop.
I offer the comparison to Mary Anne Disraeli because Dizzy’s wife was quite the story in her day. In her case it was more bemusement — as with, say, Denis Thatcher, husband to Margaret — than hostility. Dizzy declared of his own wife, “She is an excellent creature,” with one of his few complaints being that “she never can remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans.”
Mrs. Disraeli, accompanying her husband to Westminster on the eve of a great debate, managed to get her finger caught in the carriage door and, though the pain was great, “went on chatting and laughing as if nothing had happened, lest his concern for her should prevent him from doing his best.” Assessed Dizzy at another point: “We have been married thirty-three years, and she has never given me a dull moment.”
The current controversy concerning BoJo’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds, is far less comical — or dull. One leading Tory think tank, the Bow Group, is calling for a “judicial review and inquiry” to look into the influence wielded by Ms. Symonds in affairs at Downing Street. “Symonds is unelected, unappointed, and unaccountable,” the Group asserted in a statement, and “has no constitutional powers to hold any role in governing the UK.”
Among the issues raised by the Bow Group, according to Breitbart London, is Ms. Symonds’ role in hirings and firings of officials and in forming Government policy. “The public take a very dim view of cronyism,” Bow’s chairman, Ben Harris-Quinney, contends; “democracy in Britain is and must always be sacred, and no one should be involved in running our country without accountability to the people.”
Bow’s is not a universal fret, to be sure. Katie Hind, columnist at the Daily Mail, is in high dudgeon over the “misogynistic Tory dinosaurs” who are “afraid of clever women.” In Ms. Symond’s defence, the columnist calls her “an expert in politics” while holding “the coveted role of being the Prime Minister’s confidante,” as well as being “extremely well connected in Westminster circles.”
To counter these distaff denigrations, Ms. Hind says to “stop looking at the woman and focus on the men.” Exactly. For if Ms. Symonds’ only sin is in the influence she exerts over Boris Johnson, who can fault her? The Prime Minister can — and should — canvass as much opinion as he can, including from friends, constituents, the press, and policy-type think tanks. Of course, the ultimate political responsibility is his alone.
Yet, according to Breitbart, Conservative colleagues are urging the Prime Minister to “get a grip.” Even Cabinet ministers are said to be confused as to the direction pursued by the Government. This is critical. However one assesses the health effects of Covid-19, the political response has been no less disastrous. Perhaps more so. Meantime, British GDP has fallen nearly 10% in the last year.
It has been a disastrous year for Mr. Johnson, who has pursued just the opposite of the liberal policies that would be the logical fruit of Britain’s exit from the European Union. Thousands of Britons have been furloughed and industry has been put on the back foot. With untold trillions in future debt to be financed by tax rises or retrenchment, what is the Conservative Government’s plan to move forward?
If the Prime Minister is not up to the job, it is the responsibility of the Conservative parliamentary party to set him right. That some MPs have criticized government policy in respect of the lockdowns and the muzzling of industry, is hopeful. That Tories en masse have not risen up to demand a return to “maximal liberty and minimal government,” is rather less heartening.
And leaves the PM open to distractions such as the contretemps over his intended. Disraeli would sympathize with Johnson favoring his fiancée. “There is no mortification however keen, no misery however desperate, which the spirit of woman cannot in some degree lighten or alleviate,” he rhapsodized. Critics of the Conservative Government must lay blame with the Ministry itself for its missteps, and with the Tory caucus as a whole, for its failure to correct them.
that Government has become such a blight.
So let us not tarry, lest the voters abhor us;
It’s on Tory backbenchers to set Britain right.
Correction: Carrie, the first name of Ms. Symonds, was given incorrectly in the bulldog, owing to an editing error.
