Double-whammy: yesterday’s Grauniad report appeared within hours of the latest polls that show Chris Philp will lose his Croydon South seat on July 4
Two weeks to election day, and a long-running business dispute involving his wife has put more pressure on ‘local’ Tory seeking re-election in Croydon South. By STEVEN DOWNES
On the day that another poll predicted he would lose the Croydon South parliamentary seat he has held since 2015, Conservative government minister Chris Philp’s General Election hopes were dealt another telling blow with headline news that his wife, Elizabeth Philp, is subject to a complaint to the Crown Prosecution Service and is embroiled in a High Court corporate espionage case, where she has been accused of stealing “trade secrets”.
Hardly a great look for the policing minister who earlier this year doubled down on his “zero tolerance towards all crime” and said that he wanted “a back-to-basics approach that significantly increases the number of criminals caught and prosecuted”.
Mind you, we’ve seen before how Chris Philp has failed to take any action over serious incidences of criminal damage to public property when it suited his political campaigning – with his membership of one of those dodgy “vile cesspits of racism” anti-ULEZ groups that the policing minister never did anything about.
Our mole in the back garden lawn of Croydon Tories’ headquarters in Purley says that a robust defence of the claims against Elizabeth Philp is being prepared. “This is essentially a commercial dispute between two companies,” they said, trying to distance the matter from the election campaign.
They also pointed out that the complainant reported by The Grauniad has already been found guilty of misconduct and suspended by the General Medical Council for illicitly accessing private patient records. Which, let’s face it, is not a good look.
However, potentially more damaging for Philp’s re-election prospects, with General Election now two weeks away, is that the scandal swirling around his wife and her business now threatens to expose exactly where the Philps really live.
From the moment he made his maiden speech to Parliament nine years ago, Philp – once a councillor in Camden – has said that he bought a property in Coulsdon, in his parliamentary constituency. But doubts have lingered over how much time he actually spends there.
Sympathy vote: Tory Philp’s latest, seemingly desperate, plea. Without any mention of the Conservative Party
If he was found to live mostly outside Croydon, it would seriously undermine Philp’s re-election efforts.
In his campaign publicity, Philp has avoided mentioning that he is a member of the disastrous Conservative government, but has tried to make out that he is a “local” candidate: “I’m running for re-election in Croydon South with a track record of getting things done for our community.” Note the use of “our”.
Things, though, are looking grim. In his latest missive to constituents this week, Philp has mentioned the unmentionable: “I could lose,” he wrote.
The newspaper exposé has highlighted that Elizabeth Philp, according to Companies House records, never registered her businesses in Coulsdon, but from an address near Hampstead Heath.
For thousands of hard-working Londoners, the phrase “Hampstead Heath” might be regarded as rhyming slang for “teeth”. But for multi-millionaire Philp, Hampstead Heath could still actually mean “home”.
Galenic Laboratories Ltd, where Elizabeth Philp is a director, is registered with Companies House at a business address behind Liverpool Street Station. Use of an office address is a routine and common practice for many businesses, including several of the opaque international property investment companies established by Elizabeth Philp’s serial entrepreneur husband.
But between September 2015 and May 2017 – in the time after her husband became an MP for Croydon South – Elizabeth Philp is also listed as holding a directorship in The London Specialist Pharmacy Ltd, mentioned in the newspaper report. There, she was registered at a residential address in NW3 – not far from where her husband had been a ward councillor for Gospel Oak back in the day.
It is the same address Chris Philp has also used for some of his own business ventures, such as the failed Next Big Thing schools Dragons Den-style venture that folded in 2017 – two years into his new career as a parliamentarian.
According to property sales records, the three-storey town house, in swanky, latte-drinking, quinoa-munching fashionable north London, was sold for £1.1million in 2011. The property has never changed hands since.
Similar, five-bedroom houses on the same road have recently been put on the market for £2.75million.
Location, location, location: houses along the same Hampstead road where the Philps have registered some of their businesses now sell for £2.75m
Philp, in a battle for his very existence in Parliament, today declined to respond to Inside Croydon’s questions seeking to clarify whether possibly living 12 miles away really does qualify as being “local” to Croydon South.
But it appears that there may well be more to the business dispute than was reported last night by The Grauniad.
The newspaper said that Elizabeth Philp has been accused of data-handling offences and unlawfully using confidential information from her former employer to set up a rival business.
“She denies the allegations and is countersuing her former employer, whom she accuses of cyber-attacking the website of the company she subsequently founded,” The Grauniad reported.
“The legal tussle centres on the departure of Philp from the London Specialist Pharmacy Group, where she was chief executive until 2017, and the founding of her own company, Roseway Labs.”
Suspended: Dr Marion Gluck was banned from practising for four months
Elizabeth Philp’s counterclaim makes reference to her husband’s political career, and that in her departure from London Specialist Pharmacy Group there was a delay in re-setting her work laptop because she was “fully involved in supporting her husband’s campaign as part of the June 2017 general election”.
The claimants, Gluck Health Limited and its subsidiary, the London Specialist Pharmacy, are seeking the return of a £10,000 termination payment given to Philp, along with hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages.
In a letter to the CPS, lawyers acting for the London Specialist Pharmacy also claim that Philp and the other former employees committed offences under Section 170 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
Philp says that she had not been contacted by the CPS or the police.
“She now describes herself as the co-founder and chief executive of Roseway Labs, a pharmacy that was founded in 2018 to work with private doctors to offer personalised medicine,” The Grauniad reported.
“The legal action is the latest twist in a bitter rivalry between Dr Marion Gluck, 74, who founded Gluck Health Limited, and Philp’s company.”
Gluck was suspended from medical practice for four months last September after she was found to have borrowed log-in details for Roseway’s website to access the private records of hundreds of patients.
“Roseway Labs was the victim of a deliberate and sustained cyber-attack by the Specialist Pharmacy, which only raised allegations against Roseway Labs once it was clear that their activities had been discovered,” Elizabeth Philp told the newspaper.
“Roseway Labs reported the attack to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which suggested that we report it to the police under the Computer Misuse Act… At no point has Roseway Labs received any contact from the police or the Crown Prosecution Service and [Roseway Labs] has not committed any offence.”
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Interesting also that the pharmacy company seemed to nearly double its cash in hand in the years after Covid and it has an offshoot company specialising in fashionable gut biome treatments @£50 a pop for the wealthy well!
How much more sleaze? Serial entrepreneur who dissolved a company he ran owing £4.5 million, leaving hundreds of unemployed people out of pocket.
In the case to which I think you are referring (it’s hard to say with certainty from your summary), Philp will say that he exited his involvement with the business some months before it was wound up, as well as leaving clients who had paid in advance for training out of pocket, also failing to settle income tax and VAT bills.
I’m far from a Philp defender, I think he’s beyond a waste of space but I can’t imagine who I’d sell a house in Hampstead to live in Coulsdon 😆
It’s all about honesty, Joanna.
I would draw your attention to this blog which did not appear to last beyond 2018.
https://thepoliticalwifecouk.wordpress.com/author/philpelizabeth/
Here Mrs Philp clearly claims that the family residence is in the Coulsdon area and provides photographs to this effect. Further it shows that Mrs Philp is part of the Chris Philp political operation.
Can’t be certain that it is not an elaborate spoof.
Quite like the entry for January 30, 2018, though, under a heading “Political Sleaze”.
“Well, it all started when my next-door neighbour said, “We know what he gets up to, but we want to hear about you”. “Really?”, I thought. “I’m sure my life isn’t that interesting.”
Having read the few posts there I have to say I agree with her.
Ouch!
Philp may have bought a property in Croydon but it doesn’t mean he lives in it. His list of expenses since being elected 9 years ago doesn’t mention any travel claims https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs/your-mp/chris-philp/4503
It’s only 6 miles from his home in Hampstead to the House of Commons. He probably jogs that without breaking into a sweat
To be fair, it’s a million miles (pounds?) better than his predecessor, who lived in a big house in Tandridge (perfect for Tory Party fund-raisers in the summer) with its expenses-funded duck house, and claimed for a second home nearer Parliament, where he had his missus on the pay roll as his secretary.
In Congo Chris’s case, it is all about honesty with the electorate.
If I’m not mistaken, Ottaway had to actually travel through the constituency to get to his second home he ‘needed’ to access parliament.
His properties effectively straddled it.
Not as if it’s difficult to get to and from London from here and, if after hours, he’d been entitled (I use with word without sarcasm) to taxis home.
The one that got me was his claiming for the Sunday papers.
As if he couldn’t shell out like any normal person would for his weekly copy of the NOTW.