Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 56, and partner Carrie Symonds, 33, were secretly married in the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of the Precious Blood on Saturday, it has been confirmed.
The cathedral, better known as Westminster Cathedral, told the Sunday Times: “On Saturday 29 May, the wedding of Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson took place in Westminster Cathedral.
“The bride and groom are both parishioners of the Westminster Cathedral parish and baptised Catholics.
“All necessary steps were taken, in both church and civil law, and all formalities completed before the wedding.”
NEW PIC: PM @BorisJohnson newly married to Carrie Symonds in Downing Street garden yesterday pic.twitter.com/CEX3xO0Z2r
— Darren McCaffrey (@DarrenGBNews) May 30, 2021
News on the union prompted some uncharitable comments from parliamentary colleagues of Johnson, such as former Labour government minister Lord Adonis, who remarked: “Delighted to see that the Catholic Church now marries divorcees not only in its churches but in its cathedrals. Could it please now do the same for same sex couples?”
However, despite Johnson having been baptised Catholic, he converted to Anglicanism while attending the elite Eton boarding school — and so it is believed that his status as a two-time divorcee was not an obstacle to a Catholic wedding not because the Vatican has changed its stance on divorce, but because his previous non-Catholic weddings would not be recognised as valid by it.
The Prime Minister’s new wife, a former Tory Party director of communications who is believed to wield substantial influence in Downing Street and to have played a role in the removal of the former Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, had not been married previously.
She has not enjoyed positive press coverage in recent weeks, with Cummings having alleged to a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic that she interfered in an official hiring process “in a way which not only unethical but was clearly illegal” in order to put her friends in high places.
She is also accused of being the driving force behind “wallpapergate”, a story much pushed by the press with respect to an expensive refurbishment of the official residence she shares with the Prime Minister and the way it was funded — but which failed to make an impact on the recent local elections in England, in which the Tories made huge gains.
Dominic Cummings says Carrie Symonds was trying to appoint her friends to jobs in No 10
She was 'trying to overturn outcome of an official process about hiring a particular job in a way which was not only completely unethical but was clearly illegal'
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) May 26, 2021
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