Boris proposed last year, reveals UK PM's pregnant fiancee

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposed to partner Carrie Symonds late last year, his pregnant fiancee revealed on social media to her friends after the couple formally announced their engagement.

Symonds, who turns 32 later this month, confirmed their baby will "hatch" in early summer – which would mean around June.

In a post on her private Instagram account on Saturday, she said: "I wouldn't normally post this kind of thing on here but I wanted my friends to find out from me.

"Many of you already know but for my friends that still don't, we got engaged at the end of last year and we've got a baby hatching early summer. Feel incredibly blessed."

The timing of the engagement raises the possibility that Johnson proposed when the couple were on their Christmas vacation on the Caribbean island of Mustique in December last year.

According to 'The Sunday Times', the pregnancy had been an open secret in government circles as Symonds kept a low profile in recent weeks and friends talked about a baby shower.

The news makes Johnson, 55, the first sitting UK Prime Minister to divorce, marry and have a baby while in office at 10 Downing Street, where the couple have been living since July last year.

The news of the impending wedding and baby were made public soon after Johnson's divorce from his Indian-origin ex-wife Marina Wheeler got finalised last month.

Wheeler, whose mother Dip Singh hailed from Punjab, is a barrister and columnist who has four grown up children with Johnson. Their eldest daughter Lara is a few years younger than Symonds.

Johnson and Wheeler had separated in 2018 and announced their divorce plans soon after reports of Johnson's affair with Symonds became public. Symonds, a former communications chief for the Conservative Party, first met the future Prime Minister during his London mayoral re-election campaign in 2012. She now works as a Senior Adviser for ocean conservation charity Oceana.

"Carrie previously led communications for the Conservative Party in the UK where she helped promote policies on the environment and animal welfare," notes her profile for the charity.

"Carrie is passionate about protecting the oceans and marine life, particularly by reducing plastic pollution," it adds.

His marriage to Symonds will be Johnson's third, following his divorce from first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen and then second wife Marina Wheeler, and their child will be his sixth, four with Wheeler and a fifth following an affair with art consultant Helen Macintyre.

David Cameron was the last UK Prime Minister to have a child while living in Downing Street when his wife Samantha gave birth to their fourth child, Florence, in 2010. A decade earlier in 2000, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and wife Cherie had their fourth child, Leo, at Downing Street.