Captain Chris ‘Hunter-Killer’ Philp takes on French navy single-handed

Chris Philp claimed the shots could have been an attempt to stop his coverage of the small boats crisis. Photograph: Chris Philp MP/X View image in fullscreen Chris Philp claimed the shots could have been an attempt to stop his coverage of the small boats crisis. Photograph: Chris Philp MP/X Captain Chris ‘Hunter-Killer’ Philp takes on French navy single-handed John Crace Shots fired in the Channel are all in a day’s work for the intrepid shadow home secretary C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. Captain Chris ‘Hunter-Killer’ Philp had been on patrol since first light in the English Channel. While the rest of the country was still asleep, the Philpster was scanning the horizon for rubber dinghies full of illegal immigrants. Something he had never done in his previous life as immigration minister. Back then he had sought to rehouse new arrivals in hotels. Now he wanted to send them to a watery grave. It had been a quiet morning. Too quiet. Just the one sighting of a child with a rubber ring paddling off the beach in Boulogne. But Hunter-Killer was taking no chances. All it takes is one child and before long there will be hundreds of thousands making the crossing with swimming aids bought from the local Carrefour. So the Philpster had called in the RAF. Minutes later, a Typhoon FGR4 had blasted the kid out of the water. Job done. Pour encourager les autres. Half an hour later, all hell broke loose. A French warship had appeared to starboard. The next thing Hunter-Killer heard was the sound of 17 indistinct pops in the distance. “Get down,” he shouted to his crew. “We’re under attack.” Weirdly, no one on board the Philpster’s MTB disguised as a fishing vessel seemed remotely worried. How come they were so slow to sense danger? There again, few had the finely tuned antennae of the Philpster. Those years of training with the Special Boat Service had paid off. Hunter-Killer threw himself on the floor of the wheelhouse, waiting for the gunshots to stop. “I think it’s safe now,” a deckhand said. “It was just some French sailor firing some shots from a handgun away from us into the sea. It wasn’t as if he was aiming at us or anything. He was probably just test-firing. It’s no big deal.” “You don’t understand,” squeaked Captain Philpster. “This was a definite attempt by the French to intimidate me. Typical of Johnny Foreigner to send out a warship to track the shadow home secretary. They don’t like it up ’em. They’ve probably got special guns that fire round corners. So you think they’re shooting in a harmless direction but the bullets turn 90 degrees in flight. I came within a whisker of being hit. Not that anyone gets to intimidate Hunter-Killer. Help! Help!” The crew looked rather nonplussed. Most of them hadn’t even heard the shots – “he was probably using a silencer,” said the Philpster – let alone had any idea they had come under serious attack. But Hunter-Killer was adamant. The Frenchies had been out to eliminate him. He had got too close