Some politicians might just wonder how low their careers can go after being asked to serve in a department run by Nadine Dorries. Not Chris Philp. Then again, the digital minister is no normal No 2. That’s a level of responsibility of which he can only dream. Philp is much more a natural No 5. And only then because there is no No 6. He is a man who can be guaranteed not to demonstrate having a conscience. Not because he is intrinsically evil or amoral, but because he is too dim to have an original thought in his head. He is someone who can be relied on to repeat the last thing someone said to him and believe it to be true.
All of which made Philp the ideal candidate for the morning media round, as the only question he was going to be asked was whether the prime minister should apologise for his Jimmy Savile remarks after the previous evening’s protests in which Keir Starmer had been abused and harassed. And the Philpster duly adopted His Master’s Voice by parroting the lines he had been told to learn.
