Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie may have had to give up Checkers, but the location of their wedding party will have nothing to send to the country residence, the British premier’s ‘buen retiro’. Over the weekend, BoJo and his wife will hold the wedding party in a spectacular Georgian-era residence in Gloucestershire: Daylesford House is a country mansion, built in the late 1700s complete with an orangery and private pond. The residence is owned by billionaire Lord Bamford, a generous financier of the Conservative Party (it is estimated that, in the last twenty years, he has given the party over 10 million pounds, in cash and gifts).
During the pandemic, the Johnsons were supplied to Downing Street with food from the empire of shops, which sell produce from the farm owned by Lord Bamford’s wife, Carole, which is based on the Daylesford estate. In the early 2000s, the Baroness began converting the family farms to organic farming and founded the Daylesford Organic Farmshops chain which is now an empire: it ranges from clothing to beauty products and home accessories. ‘sign of sustainability.
A white awning has been erected for the reception between the lawns of the Daylesford gardens: it is to be sworn that the setting will be of the ‘Arcadia rural-chic’ type, very natural, sustainable, with organic products and exuding freshness.
The Johnson married in secret last May in a low key ceremony at Westminster Cathedral along with a small group of close friends and family (it was the time when no more than 30 people could attend the wedding). The wedding was officiated by Father Daniel Humphreys, the same who also baptized their firstborn, Wilfred. The ceremony took place a few days after it was leaked that the couple had sent a ‘save the date’ mailing, for July 30 this year, so guests could get ready to celebrate their nuptials in style.
Johnson tried to celebrate at Checkers until the end (the evil ones say it was one of the reasons he wanted to stay as long as possible in Downing Street), but reasons of political expediency eventually led him to give up and try an alternative
According to the media, the guests should be about 200, not a legion in a VIP context. With a select representation of politicians who have remained loyal to Boris, friends and well-known personalities close to the couple, family members of both. Although it is unclear how many of the children born from previous marriages of the Brexit leader’s tumultuous personal life (who in total has 7 recognized heirs) will show up for the appointment.
An appointment that seals a goodbye. Or maybe just a goodbye, to listen to that “hasta la vista, baby” that Johnson reserved as an ironic greeting to Parliament, citing Terminator 2. Unlikely hypothesis, were it not for the faded and increasingly disappointing profile eyes of many commentators on the two candidates who remained on the track to take his place: the young former Chancellor of the Exchequer of Indian origins Rishi Sunak, frontrunner in the preliminary ballots among the Tory deputies, but apparently unwelcome to the members called to decide the outcome of the ballot for the his too professorial competence and the ‘traitor’ label; and the foreign minister, Liz Truss, woody, but now indicated as a favorite among the ranks of the base in a line of substantial continuity with BoJo and popular-populist promises about tax cuts. A right-handed loyalist of Johnsonism, in the opinion of Gary Gibbon, political editor of Channel 4, purified of the excesses, “but also of the instinctive charisma and popularity” of Boris, whose figure seems almost made on purpose to suggest the suspicion of a warm interregnum -place.