Uncategorized

Excl: Phillips misses PLP meeting on gender. Then attends Murdoch bash

 

jp bbcdp.png
MP Jess Phillips as shown on today’s Daily Politics programme

Labour MP Jess Phillips is no stranger to the press. As well as being a frequent, vocal critic of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, she wrote an article for the Guardian painting her colleague Laura Pidcock as naive for considering Tory MPs the enemy of her constituents. She wrote a bizarre article for The New Statesman, in which she told how brilliant Labour’s conference was – until she wasn’t there any more.

And she gave a lengthy interview to the Murdoch-owned Times in which she complained that “Labour under Corbyn feels like I’ve been locked out of my home”. She has also been a prominent campaigner for gender equality.

In spite of her feeling ‘locked out’, Ms Phillips is the Chair of the Women’s PLP (parliamentary Labour party), having ousted Dawn Butler from the role earlier this year.

Labour sources have told the SKWAWKBOX that Ms Phillips missed last night’s weekly PLP meeting – at which Ms Butler spoke about the party’s gender audit.

Ms Phillips later attended what the Politico website called ‘the party of the night’ – a private event thrown by Rupert Murdoch at his penthouse apartment:

murdoch phillips

Every other name listed among what the author calls “a who’s who of parliament’s rising stars” is a Tory MP. Perhaps surprisingly for an avid Twitter user, Ms Phillips does not appear to have tweeted about the ‘bash’.

The SKWAWKBOX contacted Ms Phillips for comment. She explained that she missed the PLP meeting to attend a meeting with a government minister to discuss a number of topics, including sexual harassment.

However, she did not so far respond to questions about the appropriateness of a Labour MP attending a party thrown by the owner of publications that routinely attack her party, about her relationship with Ms Butler or about whether it’s routine to miss the weekly PLP meeting to meet ministers.

The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.

34 comments

  1. ‘Birds of a feather, flock together’

    The reason that Jess Phillips hangs out with Tory MPs and senior propagandists at a party hosted by their plutocrat owner is because she shares the same worldview and supports the same neoliberal agenda. Her constituents should be wondering whether they, in fact, elected a Tory Mp!

    1. Id not be surprised if she crosses the floor, she’s been fluttering her eyelashes at the tories in recent months

  2. It is very confusing when a Labour MP apparently continues to take every opportunity to abuse her own party, whether by words or behaviour.

    As for being the only Labour MP at a Murdoch ‘bash’ – well what’s going on there?

  3. I support Left Wing Democratic Socialists myself as Labour MPs; those for whom it is more of a calling than a career:
    “LAST THROES (RIGHT WING) ‘GREAT MEN AND WOMEN.’
    AS THE RICH STUFF THEIR MOUTHS WITH GOLD.
    WITH NOT A SINGLE ORIGINAL IDEA IN THEIR HEADS.
    TIME FOR SOCIALISTS: W CLASS/PROGRESSIVE MIDDLE CLASS, MALE/FEMALE, LGBT, DISABLED, BLACK AND WHITE, YOUNG AND OLD!”
    Solidarity!

  4. Why on earth is a Labour MP attending an event like this?

    Jess Phillips’ attacks on the Labour Party, its leadership and membership are starting to make more sense now.

    No Labour MP worth their salt would attend such an event with this nest of vipers.

    It is becoming increasingly clear whose side Jess Phillips is on, and it isn’t the side of the Labour Party and the hardworking women and men it represents.

  5. someone knocking at the door
    somebody ringing the bell
    someone knocking at the door
    somebody ringing the bell
    do me a favour, open the door
    and let Corb in…..

      1. Gobshites the world over will be up in arms on hearing that 🙂

  6. ‘Who’s who of rising stars’

    Inclusive of the likes of raab, badenoch, and (Wait for it ) philips and patel…

    If they’re considered ‘rising stars’ I really ought to eat the same mushrooms as the author.

    ‘Rising stars’ ffs…Jesus Wept

    1. She’s going nowhere … that is what she is so annoyed about; she joined a party full of pale blue MP’s with their noses in the trough who were becoming indivisible from the Tories.
      She didn’t expect to have the rug pulled out from under her …. 😀

  7. SHE’S HOPING THEIR MONEY AND INFLUENCE WILL RUB OFF ON HER—–PURE PERSONAL ADVANCEMENT– — THEY WILL FEEL CONTEMPT FOR SOMEONE WHO CRAVES THEIR COMPANY BUT WHO IS BELOW THEIR CLASS.

  8. They say you can judge a man or woman by the company they keep.
    What an insult this woman is to all the victims of these bullying cowards.
    She then as the nerve to complain of sexism and abuse whilst drinking champange with the main puveyors of the same, surrounded as they are by brown nosed creeps and toady yes men. (and women). The sycophantic celebrities may have some excuse, as do the Tory Toadies, self publicity is their stock in trade, but for a Labour MP ( “a Labour MP”as Kinnock would say) must be the ultimate hypocracy of the year. I think this site should give an award for the title. ‘Political Hypocrite of The Year’ for which I of course nominate and vote for Jess Phillips MP OBN

  9. what does one expect these MP’s were picked to be part of the new labour plans by Progress , now we need to lowly remove them , Phillips is a Tory by faith and idealism.

  10. Well, just another Tory Lite Blairite masquerading as a Labour person who we all have to treat with respect, courtesy and good manners whilst she laughs all the way to the bank and sniggers at our stupidity! Well bollocks, she’s just self serving, self righteous, smug, careerist scum who mixes with some of the biggest crooks in the World! Bunch of nasty arses all of them

    1. Who says we HAVE to treat her with respect, courtesy and good manners?

      Has she shown respect, courtesy or good manners to those on the left?

      Has she shite.

      She’s all right telling Diane Abbot to ‘F-off’ and crying about wimmin’s rights & abuse of MP’s & such but when push comes to shove she’d rather swan off to someone who peddles topless photos rather than do something tangible to advance ‘wimmin’s rights’ (Unless it’s her own, right the f**k now)

      No, she’d rather cosy up with ultra-rich & elitist toerags on Tv shows for a whopping fee for herself, than do something for those what gave her the bastard job in the first bleedin’ place.

      I can’t stand the rat. I woudn’t bat an eyelid to hear of any misfortune that befalls the hypocrite.

  11. Instead Playbook’s “spotted” list of MPs reads like a list ofparliament’s rising stars…”

    Murdoch identified anointed “rising star” MPs more like. MPs he likely identified as good targets to be cultivated and ‘persuaded’ to be onside with private corporate, banking and foreign policy vested interests in parliament?

    Noneof those mentioned in this article are what I consider to be rising star MPs in championing and fighting for the interests of the majority of people.

    1. Too right; more corruptible than rising stars.
      Murdoch can smell these buggers a mile off

  12. Maybe she’s a double agent perhaps?
    Dont know why but I had a vision from the Kingsman film. the part where all their, heads popped…..
    Now that was funny 😄 teeter

  13. I wonder what Birmingham Yardley CLP make of this …I wouldn’t be surprised if they are not happy!, frankly she should be deselected for her persistent rank disloyalty!

  14. Why is she still an MP , if she was a man she would have been sacked immediately for threatening to stab Corbyn

  15. Tbh I’m a bit worried about Jess Philips. From her Guardian piece on Saturday, she sounded really paranoid…. worried to pass by alleged sexual harrassers in the lobby … even in full public view. She seems to sees abusers everywhere she turns in the HoC. And now this … going to a Murdoch party instead of a PLP meeting focused on her fears. I wonder if she’s losing it….

    Unless of course, she knows exactly what she’s doing and she is trying to make the misogyny smear stick to Corbyn. That might also explain her August interview when she said that Left wing men were the worst.

    ‘I’m forced to bow my head, to push through in a way that means I don’t encounter the men from the other side whose skeletons are jangling in my mind.

    As I walk down the corridors, I have to slow my pace to avoid people who have been referred to the police. I wait for the next lift, find a different table to sit at and ultimately stay in my office as much as possible.’

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/17/at-westminster-the-accused-still-walk-among-us

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/14/female-labour-mp-claims-left-wing-men-worst-sexists/

    1. “As I walk down the corridors, I have to slow my pace to avoid people who have been referred to the police. I wait for the next lift, find a different table to sit at and ultimately stay in my office as much as possible.”

      …Until a big fat cheque from the Tv station’s waved under my snout (as long as I appear sat next to them happily spouting my usual self-important bullshit), then I’m off like a shot.

  16. This explains why Jess Phillips is a regular guest on the various political chat shows on TV. Her Brummie accent and strident views about gender equality give her apparent street credibility and notionally provide the ‘balance’ across the political divide. The reality is that she is a double-dealing Tory in all but name. Deselection is the obvious sanction.

  17. I cant think of a single ‘Tory’ policy that Jess Phillip’s supports. This criticism of her is ridiculous. There is a big problem of MPs (and contributors here) being trapped in their own echo chamber especially on the left. The Westminster wine bar socialists love their own echo chamber but would do well to consider the less insular views of forgotten traditional working class labour voters north of Islington to whom this won’t be a problem.

Leave a Reply to Tony HaggerCancel reply

Discover more from SKWAWKBOX

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading