Meanings
- UKarchaicgovernmentA British political scandal of 2022 around allegations that prime minister Boris Johnson, during his time as Foreign Secretary, had recommended Carrie Symonds, then his mistress, as a candidate for a high-paying job as chief of staff in the Foreign Office.
What are we to make of the tawdry saga of what we must now, with grim inevitability, learn to call “Carriegate”? […] the headline that appeared in the first edition of last Saturday’s Times: “Johnson tried to give Carrie top Foreign Office job during affair”.
2022 June 20, Sean O'Grady, “‘Carriegate’ is just another classic Johnson scandal”, in The Independent2 more examples
The SNP spokesman usually prefers to go into fire-and-brimstone mode at the first hint of scandal – holding forth on the moral turpitude of Westminster like a sort of besuited, latter-day John Knox. Carriegate would have pricked his interest under normal circumstances.
2022 June 22, Madeline Grant, “Spluttering Boris Johnson reverts to filibuster mode as PMQs get personal”, in The Telegraph, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2022The Times simply spiked the story. Downing Street said it wasn’t true so all those other sources were ignored and – poof – the news blinked out of existence. But in the interim, it had been picked up by the other outlets, who also reported that the story had been spiked. The incident became Carriegate, which felt like the thousandth gate of the year.
2024, Russell Jones, Four Chancellors and a Funeral: How to Lose a Country in Ten Days, London: Unbound, page 144
Origin
Cite this entry
Carriegate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Carriegate
“Carriegate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Carriegate. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Carriegate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Carriegate.
Source: Carriegate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.