Philippa Stroud

This article is part of the Revolving Door project of Spinwatch.

Philippa Stroud was appointed special adviser to Ian Duncan Smith in May 2010 at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Background

Stroud stood as a Conservative Party Parliamentary candidate for Birmingham Ladywood in 2005 and for Sutton and Cheam in 2010, but lost in both elections. She was expected to win the Sutton and Cheam seat from Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow, but Burstow held on to win with a majority of 1,608 votes (despite a 1.5% swing from the Liberal Democrats to the Tories). Her decision to join the Conservatives was due to her "conviction that the values of personal responsibility and compassion sit best within the Conservative tradition".

Stroud graduated from Birmingham University with a degree in French before spending a gap year working with recovering drug addicts in Hong Kong, where she met her husband David Stroud.

Think tank involvement

Centre for Social Justice

Stroud was previously Executive Director of the Centre for Social Justice think tank, set up by Duncan Smith.

Religious beliefs

Salt, light, and "joyful female submission"

Philippa Stroud is married to David Stroud, a leader in the Newfrontiers Church. He is a signatory to the Westminster Declaration, a statement backed by "socially conservative" Christians which has been criticised by other Christian organisations, such as the think-tank Ekklesia, the Christian Socialist Movement, the Conservative Christian Fellowship and the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum. The Declaration promotes "a particular interpretation of marriage", while also addressing issues such as abortion, euthanasia and the freedoms of Christians.

Philippa Stroud also attends the Newfrontiers Church. Number 7 of the Church's Vision and Values affirms that:

A Church where Biblical family life is highly valued, where husband and wife embrace male servant leadership and joyful female submission, where godly parenting is taught and practised, and where the special value of singleness and its unique opportunities are affirmed.

Jonathan Bartley, co-director of Ekklesia, asks:

Who would voters be electing in Sutton and Cheam - Philippa Stroud or her husband? The question must be asked whether, in the event she was elected to Parliament, she would on any occasion ‘submit’ to her husband's will and vote in a way that he thought was right, even if it contradicted her own position, the promises she had made to voters, or the manifesto on which she was elected?

Accusations of homophobia

In May 2010, The Observer published an article with the byline "Conservative high-flyer Philippa Stroud founded a church that tried to 'cure' homosexuals by driving out their 'demons'". The authors quoted several individuals who claimed to have been subjected to this "treatment":

Abi, a teenage girl with transsexual issues, was sent to the church by her parents, who were evangelical Christians. "Convinced I was demonically possessed, my parents made the decision to move to Bedford, because of this woman [Stroud] who had come back from Hong Kong and had the power to set me free," Abi told the Observer.

"She wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so-called demons inside me were wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me, calling out the demons. She really believed things like homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction could be fixed just by prayer, all in the name of Jesus.

"T" said he moved to Bedford because he believed the church could help him stop having homosexual thoughts. "I was trying to convince myself that a change was possible but, at the same time, a part of me didn't believe it was possible," he said. "The church's approach was not that it was sinful to be homosexual but that it was sinful to act on it. The aim is to get a person to a position where they don't have these sinful emotions and thoughts."

"T" said it was only after he "took a break" from the church that his depression lifted. "It was the church's attitude towards my sexuality that was the issue," he recalled.

"My impression is that she genuinely cares about people," he said of Stroud. "Her personal beliefs may get in the way sometimes, but she is a positive person."

Also quoted was Angela Paterson, an administrator at the Bedford church, who said: "With hindsight, the thing that freaks me out was everybody praying that a demon would be cast out of me because I was gay. Anything – drugs, alcohol or homosexuality, they thought you had a demon in you."

The Observer subsequently received a complaint from Stroud, summarised by the newspaper as follows:

Since publication, we have received a legal complaint from Philippa Stroud. She disputes the testimonies contained in the article and states that she has helped individuals of all sexual orientations to deal with a multitude of problems such as drug addiction, self-harming, alcoholism, eating disorders, and sexual abuse through prayer as well as offering practical help and advice. She also says that she has never founded a church, let alone a church that tried to 'cure' homosexuals. She has never prayed or advised any person to change his or her sexuality and has never countenanced any person for whom she has had responsibility attempting to question any person's sexual orientation or to re-orient them. In addition, the reference to demonic activity in her book "God's help for the poor' does not relate to sexual orientation but to those who have been involved in occult practices, including violence and sexual abuse. She adds that the New Frontiers Church network is based in the UK and has over 600 branches worldwide of which 220 are in the UK and no more than 30 are in the USA. It is not part of the US Evangelical Movement.

"God's Heart for the Poor"

The article in The Observer also asserts that "Stroud wrote a book, God's Heart for the Poor, in which she explains how to deal with people showing signs of "demonic activity"". Although Stroud appears to be credited as co-author of 'God's Heart for the Poor' (1999) by online bookshops, the other listed author, Christine Leonard, describes the book as a "ghosted biography/how to for Philippa Stroud".

Contact, Resources, Notes

Resources

• Jamie Doward, Cal Flynn and Richard Rogers, Rising Tory star Philippa Stroud ran prayer sessions to 'cure' gay people, The Observer, 2 May 2010.