Big-mouthed Tory Chris Philp needs to stop trash-talking UK workers. We know he’s only doing it to make the last Tory government look less incompetent.
His silly banter about the nine million people who don’t have a job needing to “up” their “game”, and that the UK “needs everyone to make a contribution” fails to take into account the fact that everyone does make a contribution.
It’s just that some of us do it in more subtle ways than others.
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Having worked to support a disabled partner for 17 years, for example, I know that disabled people do a huge amount to support their able-bodied relatives who have jobs – the prime example is looking after their young children so they can go to work at all.
So when Philp says “we need a work ethic”, he is ignoring the fact that we already have one – and it is very strong.
How can we not, when Tory squeezes on both wages and benefits mean we would be in poverty without one?
I have friends who work two jobs in order to make ends meet; I have one friend who has three.
When I myself was a carer, at one time I had five different occupations at once (although admittedly two of them were charitable – they didn’t make money for me but helped other people).
I have no doubt that Philp was telling the truth when he said he developed a strong work ethic in his teens – delivering newspapers, washing cars and working in a supermarket before going on to set up businesses in finance and travel.
But you don’t get to do that kind of thing without a lot of help from other people. Nobody got to be a successful businessperson without that. Philp’s education at St Olave’s Grammar School and University College, Oxford, suggests that he may have had a few “old school ties” helping him, and his early employment with government outsourcing firm McKinsey also suggests he may have made connections that helped him in his career.
A lot of working-class people don’t have those opportunities. We have to try to scrape by on our own skills, rather than being able to rely on those of other people to get us into good jobs and better positions in life.
Philp seems to lack awareness that some people don’t have all the opportunities that have been available to him. In a politician, that’s a bad omission.
But then, he’s not the shiniest tool in the Tory box. In April 2024 we discovered that he doesn’t even understand basic geography when he revealed that he didn’t know Rwanda and Congo are different countries.
A spokesperson for the Labour government has suggest that Philp’s claim is simply an attempt to tell the public that the previous Tory government’s failings were “really all their fault”, and that he is simply trying to deflect the blame.
This seems likely.
It also seems possible that it reflects a genuine belief, though. Philp once published a book, Work for the dole: a proposal to fix welfare dependency in which he argued in favour of what used to be called Workfare – the idea that people should have to carry out some form of menial work in order to receive benefit payments.
Workfare was practised by the Department for Work and Pensions under David Cameron’s government – but was thoroughly discredited; businesses used it to avoid having to pay a proper wage to proper employees, instead getting the public purse to foot the (lower) benefits bill and reaping massive profits for themselves.
Philp should be ashamed of supporting this.
But then, he was a member of the Liz Truss government. She was a co-author of Britannia Unchained, in which she and four other then-Tory MPs suggested that UK workers were among the laziest in the world – an ironic claim as their own Parliamentary attendance records were among the worst of any MPs at the time.
Truss later became prime minister, and appointed co-author Kwasi Kwarteng as her Chancellor, meaning they had a chance to put their policy ideas into practice.
And what happened? Kwarteng lasted 38 days as Chancellor before being ousted because of the mini-budget that Labour still says “crashed the economy”, and Truss quit as PM 11 days later – making her the shortest-tenured UK prime minister in history.
These ideas don’t work. They are based on a false premise. And Tories need to learn to respect their fellow UK citizens rather than blame them.
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The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
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Tory Chris Philp needs to stop trash-talking UK workers
Big-mouthed Tory Chris Philp needs to stop trash-talking UK workers. We know he’s only doing it to make the last Tory government look less incompetent.
His silly banter about the nine million people who don’t have a job needing to “up” their “game”, and that the UK “needs everyone to make a contribution” fails to take into account the fact that everyone does make a contribution.
It’s just that some of us do it in more subtle ways than others.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Having worked to support a disabled partner for 17 years, for example, I know that disabled people do a huge amount to support their able-bodied relatives who have jobs – the prime example is looking after their young children so they can go to work at all.
So when Philp says “we need a work ethic”, he is ignoring the fact that we already have one – and it is very strong.
How can we not, when Tory squeezes on both wages and benefits mean we would be in poverty without one?
I have friends who work two jobs in order to make ends meet; I have one friend who has three.
When I myself was a carer, at one time I had five different occupations at once (although admittedly two of them were charitable – they didn’t make money for me but helped other people).
I have no doubt that Philp was telling the truth when he said he developed a strong work ethic in his teens – delivering newspapers, washing cars and working in a supermarket before going on to set up businesses in finance and travel.
But you don’t get to do that kind of thing without a lot of help from other people. Nobody got to be a successful businessperson without that. Philp’s education at St Olave’s Grammar School and University College, Oxford, suggests that he may have had a few “old school ties” helping him, and his early employment with government outsourcing firm McKinsey also suggests he may have made connections that helped him in his career.
A lot of working-class people don’t have those opportunities. We have to try to scrape by on our own skills, rather than being able to rely on those of other people to get us into good jobs and better positions in life.
Philp seems to lack awareness that some people don’t have all the opportunities that have been available to him. In a politician, that’s a bad omission.
But then, he’s not the shiniest tool in the Tory box. In April 2024 we discovered that he doesn’t even understand basic geography when he revealed that he didn’t know Rwanda and Congo are different countries.
A spokesperson for the Labour government has suggest that Philp’s claim is simply an attempt to tell the public that the previous Tory government’s failings were “really all their fault”, and that he is simply trying to deflect the blame.
This seems likely.
It also seems possible that it reflects a genuine belief, though. Philp once published a book, Work for the dole: a proposal to fix welfare dependency in which he argued in favour of what used to be called Workfare – the idea that people should have to carry out some form of menial work in order to receive benefit payments.
Workfare was practised by the Department for Work and Pensions under David Cameron’s government – but was thoroughly discredited; businesses used it to avoid having to pay a proper wage to proper employees, instead getting the public purse to foot the (lower) benefits bill and reaping massive profits for themselves.
Philp should be ashamed of supporting this.
But then, he was a member of the Liz Truss government. She was a co-author of Britannia Unchained, in which she and four other then-Tory MPs suggested that UK workers were among the laziest in the world – an ironic claim as their own Parliamentary attendance records were among the worst of any MPs at the time.
Truss later became prime minister, and appointed co-author Kwasi Kwarteng as her Chancellor, meaning they had a chance to put their policy ideas into practice.
And what happened? Kwarteng lasted 38 days as Chancellor before being ousted because of the mini-budget that Labour still says “crashed the economy”, and Truss quit as PM 11 days later – making her the shortest-tenured UK prime minister in history.
These ideas don’t work. They are based on a false premise. And Tories need to learn to respect their fellow UK citizens rather than blame them.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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