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:
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.
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