Marina Wheeler | |
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Born | Marina Claire Wheeler 18 August 1964 |
Nationality | British |
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Children | 4, including Lara [1] |
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Marina Claire Wheeler KC (born 18 August 1964) is a British lawyer and writer. As a barrister, she specialises in public law, including human rights, and is a member of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. She was appointed Queen's Counsel in 2016. [2]
She is the author of The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab (2020) and is an ex-wife of former British prime minister Boris Johnson.
Marina Claire Wheeler was born in West Berlin on 18 August 1964, to Charles Wheeler, a BBC correspondent, and his second wife Dip Singh, an Indian Punjabi Sikh. [3] Her elder sister is Shirin Wheeler. [3]
Wheeler was educated at Bedales School and then the European School of Brussels, and then in the early 1980s at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where she wrote for the student magazine Cantab . [4] [5] [6]
At the European School, she became friendly with Boris Johnson, later a journalist and politician. [7]
After Cambridge, Wheeler returned to Brussels and worked there for four years. In 1987, she was called to the Bar, practising from chambers in London at One Crown Office Row. In her work as a barrister, Wheeler specialises in mental health matters and discrimination claims. In January 2004, she was appointed to the B-Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown. [8] In 2009, she joined the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal as a barrister member. [9]
Of her legal work, Wheeler has stated:
My own experience, shared by many colleagues, is that a high proportion of discrimination cases we deal with are ill-founded. One colleague puts the figure at more than 60 per cent... Many unregulated advisors make a living bringing discrimination claims, and they do not always seem to have the best interests of the Applicant in mind. [10]
In February 2016, she was appointed Queen's Counsel. [11]
In October 2023 she was announced as the Labour Party's advisor on protecting women from workplace sexual harassment and discrimination. [12]
On 8 May 1993, a pregnant Wheeler married her childhood friend Boris Johnson, whose previous marriage had ended 12 days earlier. [13] They had met again and teamed up together in Brussels, where he was covering the European Parliament for The Daily Telegraph . Together they have four children, including Lara Lettice, [5] [14] their eldest child born 12 June 1993. [13]
In September 2018, Johnson and Wheeler issued a statement confirming that after 25 years of marriage, they had separated "several months ago" and begun divorce proceedings. [15] They reached a financial settlement in February 2020, [16] and the divorce was finalised in 2020. [17]
In August 2019, Wheeler revealed that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer earlier in the year and had undergone two operations to be in remission. [18]
In 2020 her memoir The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab , detailing her family's history in India, was published. [19] Her ancestry goes back to the city of Sargodha in West Punjab, present-day Pakistan, with her maternal family migrating to present-day India after the Partition of India. [20] [21] It was shortlisted for the 2021 RSL Christopher Bland Prize. [22]
Stanley Patrick Johnson is a British-French author and former politician who was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Wight and Hampshire East from 1979 to 1984. A former employee of the World Bank and the European Commission, he has written books on environmental and population issues. His six children include Boris Johnson, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022. He is a member of the Conservative Party.
Cantab was a magazine produced by students at the University of Cambridge for nearly a decade between 1981 and 1990. It was unusual among British student magazines in being completely independent of student unions. Cantab operations were self-financed, initially through copy sales and advertising, later through advertising alone. The magazine's name, Cantab, is derived from the Latin name for Cambridge and is also short for Cantabrigiensis, the post nominal suffix indicating a degree from the University of Cambridge.
Sir Selwyn Charles Cornelius-Wheeler was a British journalist and broadcaster. Having joined the BBC in 1947, he became the corporation's longest-serving foreign correspondent, remaining in the role until his death. Wheeler also had spells as presenter of several BBC current affairs television programmes, including Newsnight and Panorama.
To date, there have been forty-six women and three men who have been married to the British prime minister in office. There have also been four bachelor and nine widower prime ministers; the last bachelor was Edward Heath (1970–1974) and the last widower was Ramsay MacDonald. The Duke of Grafton (1768–1770) and Boris Johnson (2019–2022) are the only prime ministers to have divorced and remarried while in office.
Anita Rani Nazran, better known as Anita Rani, is a British-Indian radio and television presenter.
Rachel Sabiha Johnson is a British journalist, television presenter, and author who has appeared frequently on political discussion panels, including The Pledge on Sky News and BBC One's debate programme, Question Time. In January 2018, she participated in the 21st series of Celebrity Big Brother and was evicted second. She was the lead candidate for Change UK for the South West England constituency in the 2019 European Parliament election.
Darius Guppy is a British businessman resident in South Africa. He was formerly a close friend of Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In 1993 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment for insurance fraud.
Allegra Elizabeth Jane Stratton is a British former political aide, journalist, and writer who served as Downing Street Press Secretary under Boris Johnson from November 2020 to April 2021.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.
The European School, Brussels I (ESB1) is a European School located in Uccle, Brussels, Belgium, and Forest, Brussels, Belgium. Originally the second of the European Schools to be founded, the European School, Brussels I, is today one of four in Brussels, and thirteen such schools across the European Union (EU). It is an all-through school, which exists primarily to provide an education to children of EU staff and officials based in Brussels leading to the European Baccalaureate as their secondary leaving qualification. Its alumni include the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Boris Johnson.
Heather Kay Wheeler is a British Conservative Party politician, who was first elected at the 2010 general election as the member of Parliament (MP) for South Derbyshire, taking the seat from the Labour Party after 13 years.
Munira Mirza is a British political advisor who served as Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 2019 until she resigned in February 2022. She previously worked under Johnson as Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture when he was Mayor of London.
Charlotte Johnson Wahl was a British artist. She was the mother of politician Boris Johnson, as well as the journalist Rachel Johnson and the politician Jo Johnson.
Caroline Louise Beavan Johnson is an English media consultant and is married to former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson. She is the daughter of Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent.
The Dominic Cummings scandal, or the Dominic Cummings affair, was a series of events involving the British political strategist Dominic Cummings during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. The events include at least one journey that Cummings, then-chief adviser of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and his family made from London to County Durham after the start of a national lockdown in March 2020 while they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19.
Allegra Mostyn-Owen is a British journalist and teacher. She was the first wife of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Lara Lettice Johnson-Wheeler is a British arts and fashion journalist. She is the daughter of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his second wife Marina Wheeler.
The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab is a book by Marina Wheeler, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2020. It focusses on the author's Sikh mother, Kuldip Singh, known as Dip, and traces her life through the partition of India in 1947 and her life with the British journalist and broadcaster, Charles Wheeler.
The Palazzo Terranova is a villa in Ronti, near Città di Castello in Umbria, Italy. It was built in the 18th century and has been owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2006. It was opened as a country hotel in the 1990s. Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, have hosted numerous parties at the house, and visitors have included prominent politicians and celebrities, including the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The villa has been monitored by Italian intelligence agencies over concerns that it has been used as for espionage purposes. Lebedev also owns the nearby Castello di Santa Eurasia.
The Mayor's wife couldn't be more different from her husband – but are they on the same side of the EU debate?