Mrs Carrie Johnson will meet over tea with the First Lady Jill Biden ahead of the G7 summit

They’re set to meet over tea on Thursday ahead of the G7 summit – but just what will Jill Biden and Carrie Johnson have in common to talk about? Here, FEMAIL reveals the wives marriages, careers and supportive roles in their husbands’ lives.

MARRIAGE

CARRIE 

Rumours Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds were close emerged in 2018, after the then Tory communications chief offered him ‘private coaching’ to help him sell his vision for the party after Brexit.

They were later seen together at the famous London restaurant Rules on February 14 2018 – Valentine’s Day. Mr Johnson only announced his split with his wife, Marina Wheeler, on September 7, 2018.

Boris and Carrie announced last February that they were engaged and expecting a baby – their son, Wilfred, was then born at the end of April.

They now live in a flat above Number 11 Downing Street and adopted a Jack Russell-cross puppy called Dilyn.

Boris and Carrie married in a private Catholic ceremony at Westminster Cathedral on May 29, with a small group of family and friends present. 

JILL

Dr Jill Biden is often described as her husband’s biggest defender and one of his most trusted political advisers.

The talented 70-year-old, born in New Jersey, has been married to Joe Biden for 43 years, becoming a stepmother to Beau and Hunter Biden, his two sons from his first marriage, after their mother and baby sister died in a car accident in 1972.

The First Lady was 24 when she met her now-husband – who was 33 at the time and serving as the Delaware Senator.

She had divorced her first husband – former college footballer Bill Stevenson – just a few months prior, and was set up on a blind date with Joe by his brother Frank, who she knew from college, having attended University of Delaware.

Joe famously had to propose to Jill five times before she accepted his offer of marriage – and the English professor later revealed that she avoided marrying him for so long because she was afraid that their union might bring too much disruption to the lives of his sons Hunter and Beau.

The couple married in 1977 at the United Nations chapel and a reception lunch at Sign of the Dove in New York City, and then took sons Beau and Hunter on their honeymoon. Their daughter was born in 1981.

CAREER

CARRIE 

Carrie joined the Tory party media machine in 2009, first as a press adviser, then head of broadcast at Conservative campaign headquarters ahead of the 2015 general election, before becoming communications chief in 2017. 

However, she was forced to quit just months after being accused of abusing her expenses to the tune of thousands of pounds.

Carrie was asked to leave her £80,000-a-year role after party chiefs said her performance was poor, having previously challenged her over taxi expenses.

She declined to comment on the claims, which a close friend dismissed as nonsense and a bid to smear her by opponents of Brexit.

Carrie was the product of an affair between her father, Matthew, a founder of the Independent, and of newspaper lawyer Josephine McAfee while they were both were married to other people.

Her mother raised her in a three-bed townhouse in East Sheen, South West London, while her father provided financial assistance, though he is not thought to have played a big role in his life.

Carrie was educated at the £20,000-a-year Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith, west London, which counts Nigella Lawson as a former pupil. She then went on to study theatre studies and history of art, graduating with a first from Warwick University.

In 2021, it was announced Carrie had joined animal rights charity The Aspinall Foundation as its head of communications.

JILL

As well as serving as matriarch to the Biden family, Jill has also continued to uphold her career as a teacher and professor of writing at Northern Virginia Community College while fulfilling her role as First Lady.

In 2007, she received a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in educational leadership from the University of Delaware.

As Second Lady, she launched Joining Forces with then First Lady Michelle Obama, an initiative to support service members, veterans and their families.

She also launched a children’s book in 2012, Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops, which followed the story of their family’s experience with deployment through the eyes of Dr. Biden’s granddaughter, Natalie, in the year her father, Beau, was deployed to Iraq.

SUPPORTIVE WIVES

CARRIE 

Carrie has been by the PM’s side since she joined his staff in Downing Street on his arrival in July 2019.

During Carrie and Boris Johnson’s relationship, she has been credited with attempts to transform his public image, with the PM swapping his previously unruly, slap-dash outfits to a noticeably more polished look, with neatly cropped hair and a significantly slimmer waistline last year.

JILL

Jill has shown unwavering support to Joe throughout his political career, serving as his Second Lady during the eight years he spent as Vice President to former President Barack Obama.

Prior to that, she was credited with helping to ‘make her husband whole again’ after he suffered the tragic loss of his first wife Neilia and their infant daughter in a car crash in 1972.

In his 2007 biography, Promises to Keep, Joe thanked his wife for ‘giving him back his life’ and making him feel ‘whole’ again, writing: ‘She gave me back my life. She made me start to think my family might be whole again.’