Our political editor, WALTER CRONXITE, on a Parliamentary appointment that has had Westminster watchers rolling around in laughter
Gis a job. Any job: the spirit of Yosser Hughes lives on, as Chris Philp selfies with Kemi BadEnoch on Saturday
Chris Philp, the Croydon South Conservative MP notorious as “the nose in search of a bum”, has finally landed a prize for all those hours spent prostrating himself in front of television cameras, repeating whatever absurd party line he had been instructed to trot out.
Kemi BadEnoch, the new Tory Party leader, this morning named Hampstead-based Philp as her shadow Home Secretary, the chief opposition spokesperson for one of the great offices of state. Yvette Cooper must think all her Christmases have arrived at once.
The sound of a barrel being scraped could be heard all the way from Land’s End to Inverness. It was like the absurd punchline to a joke that even the combined comic geniuses of Monty Python, The Mighty Boosh and Private Eye could never manage to come up with. Maybe a bit Benny Hill?
Oh, how they laughed. And announced on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, too. It was almost as if to prove that Guy Fawkes had the right idea all along…
BadEnoch was announced as the new Tory leader on Saturday. It took her an unusually lengthy period of time, 48 hours or so, to name the first members of her shadow cabinet. With just 121 Conservative MPs in this Parliament, after the worst election result in history for the Tories, BadEnoch has a shallow talent pool to choose from to begin with. But some notable candidates for her top team had already ruled themselves out, opting to distance themselves from the Westminster farce that is to come.
Not Philp, though.
Sound advice: John Crace’s parliamentary sketch. Chris Philp probably didn’t read it.
John Crace, the author of the “nose and bum” line, The Grauniad’s parliamentary sketch writer, has a particular liking for the Right Hon Member for Croydon South. Philp’s craven over-ambition means Crace rarely has to come up with any gags of his own.
Yesterday, Crace laid out the odds of complete buffoons finding their way to a place on the opposition front bench: “There’s about a 1-in-5 chance of any MP making it into the shadow cabinet,” Crace wrote. “These are days of plenty for ambitious young Tory MPs with one eye on their own careers. It just requires a different mindset.”
Meanwhile, there were television programmes in Nigeria discussing at length how bat-shit crazy BadEnoch has sounded, and how they, and their country, probably wanted not to be associated with the first black leader of a major UK political party.
Beginning of the end?: MP James Cleverly agreed to a picture with one Croydon pub-goer. But the then Home Secretary blanked iC’s Editor…
At Westminster, some senior Tory MPs had reached a similar conclusion. Steve Barclay and Andrew Mitchell had both decided they had better things to do with their time. Former leadership contender Tom Tugendhat sent a message saying he was busy washing his hair or some such.
James Cleverly, a former London Assembly Member, appears to be priming himself for a bid to return to City Hall, this time as Mayor.
Perhaps that meeting he had in March with Paul Scully at Addiscombe’s Oval Tavern, where Cleverly, then the Home Secretary, refused to have his photo taken with the Editor of Inside Croydon, was where the kernal of a capital campaign for the Territorial Army colonel was planted?
Remember, though: Not-So-Cleverly’s Tory leadership campaign collapsed after his supporters encouraged fellow MPs to vote for candidates other than Cleverly. So this might not be the assemblage of the finest political operation ever seen.
But as Crace put it yesterday: “James Cleverly very publicly snubbed his new boss at the weekend, saying he’d rather a return to the backbenches than carry on as shadow home secretary. He was fed up with having to defend someone else’s brainless policies.”
The vacuum created, Philp, the viscount of vacuity, has stepped forward to fill it.
“Truly we are blessed,” Crace noted on his socials this morning.
Because none of BadEnoch’s appointments thus far had been… how might we put it? Reassuring?
Priti Patel is to be the shadow foreign secretary, a move that surely can only bring us several steps closer to thermo-nuclear world war. Then there is “Honest Bob” Jenrick, who when a government minister intervened against departmental advice to hand planning permission to a Tory donor and former pornographer.
That was an act so brazen that BadEnoch herself had described Jenrick as having “the whiff of impropriety” about him. Last night, BadEnoch was naming Jenrick as her shadow justice secretary.
But the real punchline was yet to come.
‘And if you think that’s a good idea, I have a bridge to sell you’: erstwhile entrepreneur Philp seeking a multi-millionaire investor for his next big scheme. Apparently…
Philp has recently removed the “entrepreneur” line from his online profile, perhaps in the hope that people will stop digging into his record of multiple business failures – stiffing the tax man in the process – or his involvement in eastern European property ventures.
As someone who has struggled on basic geography, the foreign office brief was perhaps considered a job beyond “Congo Chris”.
He may have been given the Home Office brief because he appears to be one of the last people remaining who still think that the costly Rwanda deportation project was a good idea.
Or at least to say so in public.
He will now be shadowing an office of state which has in the past been occupied by parliamentary giants of history such as Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill (a long time ago, we grant you) and, more recently, decent, thoughtful politicians such as Roy Jenkins, Douglas Hurd and Ken Clarke.
Now we have parliamentary pygmy Philp.
“It’s a privilege to have been appointed to serve as Shadow Home Secretary by our new Leader Kemi Badenoch,” Philp tweeted this morning, apparently a little over-excited, his capital letter and syntax all over the place. “The safety of our country and security of our borders is the first duty of Government.
“The Labour Government has already showed [sic] itself to be soft on crime and on criminals. They have released dangerous criminals early without the proper checks they promised and have dropped the Conservative’s [sic] plans for delivering Immediate Justice [sic].
“On Borders [sic], they scrapped the Rwanda plan before it even started. Had the deterrent effect commenced in July as planned, we would not have seen over 17,000 illegal small boat crossings since Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.
“We now have a mission to hold Labour to account and win back the trust of the public. Conservatives need to work to develop detailed and credible plans, based on our core principles, in order to do that.
“Our principles include zero tolerance for crime and criminals, and ensuring dangerous or persistent offenders are behind bars. We must always protect and safeguard victims. We will also support the police and security services in their work to keep us safe.” This from a man who, when he was in government as… checks notes… policing minister, the Met were solving only 20% of reported burglaries in his own Croydon South constituency.
“We need to very substantially reduce legal migration, aim to end illegal entry to the UK and remove those with no right to be here – especially criminals. Nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of this critical mission.”
“I look forward to working constructively with parliamentary colleagues, party members, the law and order community and others on this agenda.”
Given Philp’s laser focus on law and order, some of his Croydon South constituents are wondering why he has continued, over several years, to associate closely (well, occupy a Conservative stand on Purley High Street) with an individual who has been under long-term and continuing police investigation for some allegedly particularly nefarious conduct…
And Home Office staff await Philp’s first official visit to the immigration processing centre in Croydon.
Philp was elected as Croydon South’s MP in 2015.
Chris Philp: the not-so-good bits
Read more: Taxing questions on business for Philp the parachutist
Read more: Only 1-in-5 burglaries solved on policing minister Philp’s patch
Read more: Philp’s Hampstead address exposed by wife’s business dispute
Read more: Under The Flyover Election Special podcast: Chris Philp
Read more: Ol’ Brown Nose is back! Philp jumps into latest Tory racism row
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
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
If we’re really lucky “Super” Mario will be found a position in the Philpster’s private office.
From what I’ve seen of Kemi – she wont tolerate any fuck-ups. So maybe the ‘Philpster’ isn’t long for the cabinet.
Oh dear!
Has she appointed him to try and make herself look relatively charming and charismatic?
Satire is dead.