Meaning of Carriegate | Babel Free

Definitions

A 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.

UK, archaic

Examples

“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”.”

“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.”

“The 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.”

CEFR level