Childcare can be a contentious issue at the best of times. So Mr S was intrigued to read of reports that Boris and Carrie Johnson have fallen out with their ex-nanny, Theresa Dawes. She claims that she was unfairly dismissed three days into the job after having a drink with the former PM while his wife was still in hospital with their third child.

In allegations described as ‘untrue’ by Johnson’s spokesman, Dawes, 59, said that she was given 15 minutes to pack her bags by Carrie Johnson the day after she returned to the couple’s Oxfordshire home this summer. When she went to speak to the former Tory leader about her treatment, he allegedly told her that his wife was ‘hormonal’, adding: ‘It’s out of my control.’

Dawes made the claims in an interview with the Sunday Mirror. Dawes said that she had been hired on a three-month contract to work for the couple before the birth of their third child, Frank Alfred Odysseus, who was born on July 5. When she arrived for work, Carrie Johnson was still in hospital and her husband, asked her to join him to ‘toast’ the baby:

It was a lovely, hot day and when Boris got home, he went out on to the terrace and opened a bottle of wine. He asked me to join him, to toast baby Frank and to give me a report on Carrie and the baby, how they were doing, when they were coming home, that sort of thing.

Dawes said that the drink had been witnessed by Carrie Johnson’s mother, and the following day when she returned from hospital with the baby she was ‘extremely rude’ to her:

I was waiting to welcome her and she just walked past saying, ‘Where’s my mum?’ Then she went upstairs with all the children. I went to make a cup of tea and Boris came in like a whirlwind, flustered… Carrie swanned down holding the baby. She didn’t ask me to sit down but Boris did. I think he could sense something was up. I think he knew she was going to dismiss me and he didn’t know what to do. The other nanny was there with the other children. He asked me to wet the baby’s head, but I said, ‘No thank you.’

Dawes said that she later received a message from Carrie Johnson asking to meet her at 11am the next day, at which she raised comments that Dawes had made when they met previously about a former employer who had celebrated when her husband resigned as prime minister. ‘She said she didn’t like the comments I’d made about her husband, when I’d told her about the other family that didn’t like him… I think that was an excuse. If she didn’t like it, why didn’t she do something two weeks earlier?’

She subsequently sought out Boris Johnson to apologise if she had offended him. According to Dawes ‘He didn’t know what to do. He said, “I don’t know what to say, she’s hormonal, she’s just had a baby, it’s out of my control”. I think it’s all because I had a glass of wine with him and she didn’t like that.’ Dawes said that she received six days’ pay but her contract states she is entitled to be paid for the entire booking. A spokesman for the Johnson family categorically denied the claims, saying: ‘This account is totally untrue. It is disappointing to see someone who sought a position of trust abuse it to create a completely false story for financial gain.’

Still, at least they’ve got that ‘other nanny’ to help with childcare, until a replacement can be hired…