Chris Philp, the hapless stooge for the Conservative Government and MP for Croydon South, has managed to score another spectacular own goal, as he finds himself at the centre of a freebies row today after he – or a minion working in his Westminster office – was found to have “forgotten” to declare £6,000-worth of hospitality received from the Football Association.
Millionaire minister: MP Chris Philp blames his lack of declarations on an ‘oversight’
All those genuine Palace fans who missed out on tickets for last year’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley will probably be seething when they glimpse the photo in today’s Times newspaper showing Philp sitting alongside Steve Holland, the England assistant manager, and his boss, Gareth Southgate, in the posh seats for that game.
The Times suggests Philp was enjoying the VIP hospitality to see his favourite team. That’ll be Chelsea then…
Philp did not respond when contacted by Inside Croydon and asked how he managed to accumulate thousands of pounds’ worth of freebies from the FA and yet fail to include them in his declarations.
Administrative error: Croydon deputy mayor Lynne Hale, here with piss-poor Perry, has been running Chris Philp’s Westminster office since 2015
The omission appears to have been either by those running Philp’s ministerial office (at the DCMS in early 2022) or in his parliamentary office.
According to official House of Commons registers, this year Philp has had no fewer than three assistants, all paid for by tax-payers and supposedly looking after his affairs in his parliamentary office, plus an intern for a couple of months.
More worryingly for the people of Croydon, among these well-paid parliamentary assistants who somehow “forgot” to register £6,000-worth of football tickets are Councillor Lynne Hale, piss-poor Jason Perry’s deputy mayor, and Simon Fox, since Monday the Conservative’s parliamentary candidate for Croydon West and a councillor for Waddon ward.
A spokesperson for Philp, the policing minister, no less, told the newspaper that he attended the match “as a guest of the FA”. He was accompanied by a guest.
The spokesperson said: “Through an administrative oversight at the time, it was not included in the relevant return within the deadline.”
Philp was a minister at the Ministry of Fun in April 2022, at the time he accepted the FA’s generous largesse. So a minister in the department that was supposedly looking into regulation of the national game was at the same time taking gifts from the organisation that runs the national team and has a hand in one of the biggest sports franchises in the world…
But then in a previous government role, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, “entrepreneur” and millionaire Philp also refused to publish his personal tax returns. This, however, was never an oversight, but a deliberate decision for opacity taken by Philp ever since he became an MP in 2015.
According to The Times report on Philp’s luxury day out at Wembley, “The seats are so exclusive that no information is readily available online about the hospitality package they came with, nor their overall price. However, seats in the “number 9” membership area, which boasts of providing seats either side of the royal box, start from £6,096.”
Prized position: How The Times has reported on Philp’s tickets oversight, with photo of the MP alongside Steve Holland and Gareth Southgate
The paper reports that no hospitality was disclosed in transparency returns released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport nor in Philp’s register of interests as an MP — in breach of the rules.
“Under the ministerial code, any hospitality received by ministers in that capacity should be published in quarterly transparency updates from their department. If they accept the hospitality in their role as an MP, they are required to declare it in the register of interests.
“After being contacted by The Times, the government was forced to issue a correction to its hospitality declaration. It blamed an unspecified ‘error’. The update confirmed that Philp received tickets, as well as a meal and drinks.” Trebles all round!
Read more: ‘Rabbit hutch’ flats and the Chief Secretary: Philp’s conflicts
Read more: MP Philp: I have no idea who is behind Purley development
Read more: MP Philp’s questions unanswered over Pluto tax affairs
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Imagine being so rich that £6k is something that could slip your mind. That or so brazen that you’d think you’d get away with not declaring it
With Chris Philp and his attitude to matters of conflict of interests and secretive lobbying we know information about his activities have to be discovered as he intends to never declare what he is getting up to. What else does he hide behind his non disclosure of tax returns and serial entrepreneurships?
After the way our local MPs (including Chris Philp and Labour’s Sarah Jones) have put up such a pathetic fight to save Old Palace girls school I have lost even more faith in the people that run our country. Most of our MPs really just serve themselves.