New year, same old Chris Philp.
Foot in mouth problem: Tory MP Chris Philp
The gaffe-prone Tory MP for Croydon South put his foot in it yet again and angered millions of TV news viewers as he claimed that the nation’s benefits system is “very generous”.
Philp, 47, who boasts that he is an “entrepreneur”, is reckoned to be a millionaire through various shady off-shore development business interests. But he has refused to publish his personal tax returns throughout his near-nine-year parliamentary career – including during the very brief spell when he was the second-most senior politician at the Treasury under national disaster “Thick” Lizzy Truss (yes, that’s right: Philp was personally responsible for the economic meltdown that followed).
Philp, the floundering Conservative Government’s regular rent-a-gob, was speaking yesterday to Sky News on the steep rise in levels of shoplifting. Asked if he had any sympathy for people stealing for food, policing minister Philp said that there was “no excuse” because the benefits system is “very generous”.
He said: “We have a very generous benefits system, we’re spending well over £100billion on working age benefits, they went up by 10% in April this year…”, he means last year. He’s just soooo 2023, “…they’ll go up by another 6% or 7%. National Minimum Wage has just gone up by around 10%.
“There is no excuse at all for any criminal activity, including shoplifting.”
It was Philp who previously suggested that shoplifting could be reduced by other shoppers making citizen’s arrests. He’s full of great ideas is our Chris…
Philp’s net worth is estimated to be around £3million, which is supposed to include a family home in his constituency, although he’s been conspicuously low-profile in Croydon South apart from the occasional Saturday when he turns up for a street stall in Purley or Coulsdon, often accompanied by notorious car lobbyist, KIpper and “person of interest” to the police, Peter Morgan…
Choose your friends…: Chris Philp campaigning in Purley with Peter Morgan
Peter Underwood, a Green Party parliamentary candidate in Croydon at the next election who has shared a hustings stage with Philp in the past reacted to the “generous” claim by pointing out Philp’s reluctance to share the hard details of his murky business interests.
Philp “has consistently refused to publish details about his income and taxes so we can see who is being ‘very generous’ to him”, Underwood noted.
Others responded to the Sky News report on social media, accusing the Tory minister of being “disconnected from reality”.
One tweeted: “Rental prices and bills have risen to unmanageable levels. The benefit system is completely inadequate.”
Eighteen months ago, when Philp was wheeled out on to BBC Newsnight to put the Tories’ feeble case against a fair wage settlement for rail workers, union chief Mick Lynch called him a “liar” 16 times on live television.
This time, Philp has been caught out lying about “generous” benefits by a respected inter-governmental organisation and social research charity.
According to the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Britain’s safety net for the unemployed is the lowest of all western European countries, offering a meagre 17% of previous in-work income. In Ireland, the figure is 54%. In Norway 78%. In Belgium it is 90%.
Indeed, according to research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a “shameful” 61% of working age adults in poverty are in families where at least one adult is in work. Rowntree also found the number of children in destitution in this country has nearly tripled to around 1million since 2017.
Chris Philp has been MP for Croydon South since 2015.
At present, Philp receives an MP’s and minister’s salary of more than £110,000 per year. The average salary in Tory Britain in 2023 was less than £35,000.
In addition, Philp and other MPs are able to claim allowances to cover the costs of running an office and employing staff, and maintaining a constituency residence or a residence in London.
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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
I have e-mailed him multiple times over 18 months on a simple matter in Croydon South and he has not bothered to respond.
Sad thing is I’m not even surprised!
Forward us the email, Liam, and we’ll put it into the public domain, if that would help and get your MP to do his job.
It appears that Chris Philp has just seen your comment on iC, Liam. We know, because he misdirected a WhatsApp message to us, in which he asks someone in his office to take urgent action.
They’re claiming that they “cannot find anyone with this name” on their system, and want you to provide further details.
Let us know when you hear anything. If you hear anything.
Anyone remember Mr Philp’s undisclosed corporate trips to Wembley which had to be declared after he got caught out in photographs. The never ending brassneck of this humbug really are a sight to see.
https://insidecroydon.com/2023/11/30/tory-minister-philp-forgot-to-declare-6000-football-freebies/
I enjoy reading catty articles. Thanks. But it would help readers work-out the level of accuracy, if the writer put his name under it. (sorry, ‘him’ assumed?)
Insidecroydon likes names on replies. That seems fair. Isn’t it equally important not to cloak insidecroydon writers in anonymity?
I wonder how this opinion-piece might have changed if the writer knew it would be signed-off with his/her name, to say ‘I believe this’?
It’s harder for a reader to believe things, when they’re not even sure the anonymous writer believes in them.
The website Editor’s name is on*every* page of this website.
Now run along and let your mate Philp know that if he says something, and it’s a lie or misleading, that’s not “catty”, but public interest reporting because of the position he holds.
And tell him to publish his tax returns, too, else nothing he ever says on economic matters can be taken without serious and reasonable doubt of his motives.