John McDonnell calls for grassroots leadership challenge to Starmer's government
The former shadow chancellor accused Keir Starmer's government of 'callousness and political incompetence', criticising its hesitance in abolishing the two-child limit on benefits, and what he calls a 'brutal launch of an attack on benefits of disabled people'.
Writing for the Guardian five decades after joining Labour as a young trade unionist, McDonnell said the movement he had devoted his life to had 'instigated a series of policies that fly like a knife to the heart of what we believed the Labour party above all else stood for when we joined the party'.
'When in the first king's speech the Starmer leadership didn't just fail to address the major cause of child poverty, the two-child benefit cap, but demanded Labour MPs vote against its abolition, the first signs of the callousness and political incompetency of the decision-making of the new administration were put on display,' he wrote.
McDonnell was among seven Labour MPs suspended last July for defying the whip on a Commons vote to end the two-child limit – a policy that continues to cause anger across Labour's benches – leaving many MPs ready to use the welfare-related vote expected in the coming weeks to express their discontent.
Labour's decision to delay the release of its long-awaited child poverty strategy until autumn has left some MPs feeling relieved, but many feeling further angered given experts have warned more children will continue to be pushed into poverty every day the policy exists.
McDonnell highlights what he sees as an erosion of Labour's founding mission. 'We are the party founded to eliminate poverty and secure equality,' he said, but instead he added, 'the distasteful sight of Labour ministers accepting gifts and tickets and donations from the rich and corporate carpet baggers whilst cutting the benefits of the poorest in our society was justifiably nauseating for many of our supporters.'
'To then follow this up with the debacle of the winter fuel allowance and the brutal launch of an attack on benefits of disabled people has disillusioned our supporters on a scale not seen before in the recent history of our party'.
The U-turn on universal winter fuel support, which initially excluded millions of pensioners on modest incomes, followed internal backlash and a local elections drubbing. But McDonnell argued the government's direction had already 'opened the door to the divisive and destructive proto fascism of Farage'.
Going even further, McDonnell launched a cutting assessment of Starmer's inner circle, claiming a full-blown power struggle was already under way. 'What we are now witnessing is a panicked half-hearted policy retreat whilst the back room boys, Morgan McSweeney in the leader's office and Nick Parrot in the deputy leader's office, fight like rats in a sack for the succession to Keir Starmer.'
Downing Street heavily pushed back against MPs' criticism of Starmer's recent immigration speech, rejecting the direct comparison with Enoch Powell but saying the prime minister would not 'shy away' from direct talk about the subject.
The government is preparing for a June spending review, with pressure from Labour backbenchers and trade unions to introduce a wealth tax and reverse planned welfare cuts. The leadership has so far resisted those calls, but McDonnell's intervention will be read by Labour insiders as a direct call for Starmer's ousting if he does not.
'Unless the party members, our affiliated unions and members of the parliamentary Labour party stand up and assert themselves to take back control of our party, in the next period, in the Labour party's history we may not just lose a government, we could lose a party', he said.
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- The Guardian
The rise and fall of the British cult that hid in plain sight
Until she was six, Philippa Barnes was surrounded by things that were hers. She had a favourite pair of red-and-white-striped dungarees and a long garden with a strawberry patch. She had a close-knit family: a mum, dad, two brothers and a sister, and grandparents who lived near the family home in Surrey. When her mum made lemon meringue pie, she would pass the curd pan out of the window to where Philippa was playing so she could lick it clean. One day, when Philippa was about two years old, a couple stopped by the family's church. They, along with their three sons, were on their way to join the Jesus Fellowship, a Christian community in Northamptonshire led by Noel Stanton, a charismatic, white-haired pastor. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and Philippa's family started visiting the fellowship a few times a year. At first, Philippa and her siblings loved these trips. Photos from that time of Cornhill Manor, one of the fellowship's properties, show high windows looking out over green fields, airy communal kitchens, and a grand ballroom with a sprung dancefloor, where members of the community slept on mattresses. It was a far cry from Woking, where the family lived opposite a noisy train line. Although Philippa had to spend long religious meetings under her parents' chairs, shushed and desperately bored, the rest of the weekend could be spent playing outside. When Philippa was five, on one of these weekends with the fellowship, something shifted. One evening, she and her two-year-old brother, as the two youngest siblings, were put to bed with a baby monitor while her parents went to a prayer meeting downstairs. 'The message was, 'We can hear you, but we don't want to hear you,'' Philippa recalled. She had never before been afraid to disturb her parents, but when her brother started having diarrhoea and then both siblings began to vomit, she had to call for them. 'My parents came, and my dad wasn't too pleased,' she said. 'Looking back, I can see they didn't want to be embarrassed by being disturbed – they were newbies to the community.' But the lesson stuck: this new church was more important than she was. In 1984, Philippa's parents told the children that the family was moving to the East Midlands to be nearer the fellowship. For her parents, the move made sense. Philippa's father was a senior scientific officer for the Ministry of Defence and had to travel regularly for work, meaning her mother was often looking after the children alone. In Northamptonshire, they had been exposed to a new way of life, one based around simplicity and community, where music was played nightly, meals were communal and children were able to enjoy the outdoors. The Barnes family bought a house in the village of Bugbrooke and regularly attended fellowship meetings and worship sessions led by Stanton. Then, in 1987, just before Philippa's ninth birthday, the family moved into what the fellowship called 'community': a farmhouse named Shalom, where about 20 people would live at any given time. Moving in meant surrendering proceeds from their house sale and Philippa's father's wages into the 'common purse'. Most who lived in community were employed in the fellowship's businesses, and Philippa's father got a job at their builders' merchant. All possessions, even down to items of clothing, were shared. In some ways, this life offered a new kind of freedom. The younger Barnes children spent time going for walks or picnics, or looking after the fellowship's livestock. To her delight, Philippa was allowed to help with lambing. She and her brother would run riot away from adult eyes. They once built a petrol bomb using a milk bottle and blew up a wasp's nest. There were also privations. Almost all of the children's toys were taken away. 'Cuddlies, gadgets or competitive toys' appeared on a list of things deemed 'worldly' – and therefore unacceptable – by Stanton. The list of banned items changed according to his whims, but over the years it included secular TV, pop music, makeup, sporting events, restaurants, buffets, weight training, holidays, zoos, coffee, sunbathing, celebrating Christmas, swimming 'for pleasure' and crisps. The children attended a local comprehensive school, but making friends outside the group was difficult. They were not allowed to eat school dinners, so every lunchtime they would troop to a fellowship house nearby. 'The other children knew to avoid us, so we stuck together,' Philippa said. Of all the strangeness in their new life, Philippa found the fellowship's approach to family hardest. Under Stanton's rules, communal living meant renouncing your 'natural family' in favour of the fellowship's 'spiritual family'. Women were called 'sisters', men were 'brothers' and leaders were 'elders'. Philippa's parents, instead of just being responsible for their family unit, were given other duties: helping to cook and clean for the other Shalom residents, or finding new recruits. When Philippa turned 12, she was moved from the room she shared with her younger brother into a dormitory with women of all ages. Explaining this approach, Stanton would point to a passage from Matthew 10, in which Jesus said: 'I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother … A man's enemies will be members of his own household.' In the absence of the 'natural family', any adult could be responsible for disciplining children. Many did so through 'rodding' – hitting children as young as two with sticks. 'He who spares the rod hates his son,' Stanton would say, quoting from Proverbs. Exorcisms were also performed on children. When Philippa was caught drawing stick figures with breasts and genitals at a meeting, she was taken into a private room so an elder could pray for her 'unclean spirit' and anoint her with oil. Philippa missed her parents. She managed to spend some time with her mum by helping in the garden and the kitchen, where they would skim cream off bottles of milk to make choux buns and eclairs, a welcome relief from bland meals of pork chops and boiled vegetables. But it never felt like enough: other girls her age were going shopping for clothes with their mums, watching TV as a family or going to the cinema or the zoo. In the communal house, doors were hung with curtains, and Philippa remembers hiding between her parents' bedroom door and the curtain, hearing the murmur of their voices as they talked, laughed or argued; longing to be closer to them. Dressed in brightly coloured shirts and patterned ties, with his signature swirl of backcombed white hair, Stanton looked more like a magician than a man of the church. A Baptist pastor born on Christmas Day, he had founded the fellowship in his small local chapel in 1969 after a 'life-changing' spiritual experience that led him to embrace exuberant worship sessions, speaking in tongues, exorcisms and communal living. From the fellowship's early days, these practices attracted attention. In a 1974 Thames Television documentary, The Lord Took Hold of Bugbrooke, one local woman complained she couldn't open her windows on Sundays because of the noise. Through the 1970s, young people and families flocked to Bugbrooke to join this new church, attracted by the stories of spiritual revelation and a thriving Christian community. There were two main levels of membership: some lived in their own home and attended worship and meetings; the hardcore lived in one of the fellowship's communal houses. As all members living in community had to hand over their assets, the fellowship flourished financially. In 1984, it bought a nearby manor house, which it renamed New Creation Hall. By the early 80s, it owned at least 10 country houses in the area, and membership in communal houses was up to about 450. It was operating a chain of health food shops, a clothing shop and a building supply company. In 1982, the Northampton Chronicle and Echo described it as 'the new aristocracy of the East Midlands'. The fellowship was a strict hierarchy, with Stanton at the top, a leadership circle below him, and an elder running each communal house. Only men were permitted to occupy these roles. Women were subordinate to men. (If a man was driving a car, women were expected to sit in the back.) Favoured members were given 'virtue names' reflecting their most valued qualities: Valiant, Zealous, Forthright or, in one young woman's case, Submission. Celibacy, especially among the male leadership, was encouraged as the highest ideal. The fellowship's first decade was punctuated by a series of strange incidents. In December 1976, a 26-year-old member, David Gavin Hooper, was found dead in a field on fellowship property, his socks and shirt folded neatly next to him. The death was put down to exposure, but the coroner, Michael Collcutt, noted that it was 'extraordinary' that he should have gone out with no coat on such a cold morning. Less than 18 months later, 19-year-old Stephen Orchard was found decapitated on a nearby railway line, having told his parents he was considering leaving the fellowship. (His virtue name was 'Faithful'.) The same coroner returned an open verdict, but noted his 'concern' about the two strange deaths and the letters he had received from parents of young people in the fellowship, who were worried about their children's safety. These incidents were closely reported by local media but never became national news. (When Philippa's family were living in Woking and first encountering the fellowship, they hadn't heard about them.) There were always explanations for the bad press: it was the product of misinformation or disgruntled former members who couldn't be trusted. But after a string of negative stories, in 1986 – two years after the Barnes family moved into community – the Baptist Union of Great Britain voted to expel the fellowship, saying it had caused them 'embarrassment'. The fellowship no longer fulfilled a requirement of Baptist churches: governance by the whole congregation. Stanton may have preached equality in the eyes of God, but within the fellowship some were more equal than others. After its expulsion, the fellowship went on the offensive. In 1987, in a bid to recruit hundreds of new members, it launched a new campaigning arm, which it called the Jesus Army. Stanton dreamed up a uniform for his troops: bomber jackets, in 'army green, red for the blood of Jesus, white for purity, black for the darkness and gold for God's glory'. On the jackets were embroidered the words LOVE, POWER AND SACRIFICE. Community houses were rebranded 'battle stations', money for campaigning was collected in a 'war fund', and the campaign to recruit new members was run by Jawbone, the Jesus Army War Battle Operations Network. The Jesus Army's mission was to fight 'economic recession, family breakdown and moral decay', according to a 1997 Stanton-approved history of the fellowship. Homelessness in Britain had doubled between 1979 and 1986, driven by rising unemployment, government cuts and high inflation. Against this bleak backdrop, the fellowship's troops travelled into city centres around the UK in colourful, Jesus Army-branded doubledecker buses, wearing their bomber jackets and camouflage trousers (for men only – trousers were banned for women). They would seek out homeless people and drug addicts, offering them a place to stay for the night, or longer. Back at the communal houses, these new recruits would sleep in the same dormitories as children as young as 12. The Jesus Army did wonders for the fellowship's public image, projecting a young, hopeful, anti-capitalist version of Christianity, dedicated to helping vulnerable people. 'We [broke] through to the 'forgotten people,'' the authors of the 1997 history wrote proudly. 'Street kids, addicts, the poor, the homeless.' From the late 80s, the Jesus Army was a regular presence at Glastonbury, doubledecker bus in tow. In the 90s, as rave music was becoming popular, troops were sent out to nightclubs to recruit. By the mid-90s, the fellowship's following had increased to nearly 2,000 people, with about 75 community houses, including outposts in London, Liverpool and Milton Keynes. It was fast becoming one of the largest residential Christian communities in Europe. In 1998, a Jesus Army delegation appeared on an episode of Jon Ronson's Channel 4 talkshow, For the Love Of …, wearing glow-in-the-dark crucifix necklaces ('everyone in the clubs wears them, because they're cool') and bemoaning 'misrepresentations' of the church. They prayed as a group over Ronson: 'I'm a factual person, but the second you put your hand on my foot, it stopped itching,' he marvelled. At 16, Philippa became a covenant member of the church. After a full immersion baptism, she swore a vow of lifelong commitment. By now, her days were entirely ruled by the group: she sang in the worship band, and worked as an administrator at the group's GP surgery, on top of the busy schedule of meetings, worship, and weekends spent evangelising. As a child, she had loved art and crafts, but there was no time for that now. The fellowship saw the pursuit of individual passions as too individualistic. Despite her outward commitment, Philippa had a growing feeling that something wasn't right. From when she was about 13, an adult man in the fellowship had begun following her home on his motorbike and staring at her in meetings, which escalated to sending her love letters and telling her they should get married. His attentions would have been obvious to other adults, yet no one stopped him. To protect herself, she asked a friend's brother to say he was her boyfriend, despite Stanton's ban on flirting and dating. While her stalker went unchallenged, Philippa was hemmed in by the fellowship's endless rules. Once, she was publicly chastised by her house elder for getting a haircut in town, using £10 her grandmother had sent her. 'I could feel that rebellion inside me. Like, what does it really matter? It's just hair.' When she was 17, her father gave her some news that would crystallise her growing distrust of the organisation that had raised her. A friend of Philippa's, Marie*, had gone to the police with some information and it was now being investigated. He didn't say more than that. That night, Philippa lay in bed turning this over and over in her mind. Marie had been her closest friend. She and her family had left the fellowship with no warning, which meant they were cut off from all contact with the group. Philippa had felt so hurt that she had burned Marie's letters. Yet she knew what the police report must be about. To Philippa, it felt like Marie was reaching out for help. Philippa went to her dad and told him the truth. From the age of 13, on her regular visits to see Marie at the fellowship's house in Acton, Philippa had been forced to act as a lookout while a 24-year-old man in the household abused Marie in the basement. She had remained silent, believing it wasn't her story to tell. Now Marie had reported her abuser, and Philippa wanted to corroborate her story. Philippa and her father approached the elder of her household, who took the matter to Stanton. When the alleged perpetrator was questioned, he insisted the two girls were lying. Stanton accused Philippa and Marie of being 'in cahoots', as if their friendship was in itself cause for suspicion. Although Philippa's father had lived for almost a decade in a community where family loyalty was considered sinful and hierarchy was everything, he stood by his daughter. So did her house elder, who insisted that he believed her. Philippa and her father were told to wait until the end of the week for a final decision about whether the information should be passed to the police. To Philippa, it wasn't up to the fellowship to decide. So, feeling like fugitives, she and her father bypassed the leadership. To avoid being overheard, they found a phone in a rarely used outbuilding where Jesus Army merchandise was spray-painted, and called the police. After Philippa was asked to give a statement, they secretly travelled to London. The case made it to court, and Philippa was called as a witness. Her older brother, who was by now in his late 20s and living in a fellowship house in Eastbourne, was summoned by elders to a meeting, where he was told his sister was lying, and that she was set on destroying the church. Like his father, he supported her, in spite of the pressure. Stanton held further meetings, condemning the whole family. When Philippa arrived at Isleworth crown court to give her testimony, the room was filled with fellowship members. They were there to support the accused. On 4 April 1997, a jury found the perpetrator guilty of two counts of sexual assault of a minor, for touching Marie's breasts and trying to kiss her. The judge jailed him for three months, noting that the offence had taken place years earlier, and that the man may have struggled under the church's 'strict regime', alluding to the limitations Stanton placed on sex and dating. 'You were living in a society where your frustrations may well have built up,' the judge said. After the verdict, Marie told the Northampton Chronicle and Echo that the fellowship inflicted 'constant mental abuse' on its members. Few outside the Acton house even knew that the perpetrator had been convicted. After his release, he was welcomed back to the fellowship with open arms. In 1979, John Everett, a student at Warwick University, began a sociological study of the Jesus Fellowship for his doctoral thesis. He had joined the group in the summer of 1977, experiencing it as a 'pocket of utopian escape from a chaotic, frenetic, unsympathetic world', something 'very close to a classless society' where people of all kinds were accepted. Now, he had been commissioned by Stanton himself to go and study its unique makeup. Yet as he conducted his research, examining the group's structure and practices through an academic lens, he began to reach a devastating conclusion: that the church was a cult. As Everett writes in War and Defeat, a history of the organisation that he self-published this year, he couldn't escape the fact that the authority structure and separation from the rest of the world were hallmarks of cultic groups. 'It would have taken a huge amount of self-deceit to deny what I could plainly see: the key characteristics of a cult were in our DNA,' he writes. There is a school of sociology that rejects the term 'cult', arguing that it has been used to dismiss unusual groups that challenge social norms, and preferring the category 'new religious movements'. Many other scholars and survivors disagree, arguing that the methods cults use to control their members are distinct. Alexandra Stein, a British psychologist and survivor of a political cult, says that whether religious or non-religious, cults are remarkably similar: 'If you've seen one car, you know what machinery is in another car, even if it's a different colour.' In the popular imagination, cults are closed-off entities, physically removing their members from the outside world. The fellowship claimed to work differently: members were free to go to school, work, and live outside of community houses. But just as an abusive partner might exert influence over every aspect of a victim's life, Stanton had built a system of mental and emotional control that relied on a common cultic tactic: gradually severing members' attachments to the rest of society, to family members and even to one another. Those broken connections were replaced by a single reference point: the fellowship. With nowhere else to go, any feelings of fear and stress provoked by life in the organisation would only serve to drive members closer to it. This helps explain why, after the trial and their condemnation by the leadership, Philippa and her parents stayed in the fellowship. 'Really, we should have left at that point,' she said. 'But it didn't occur to us. We had made a lifelong commitment.' Their homes, jobs, friendships and assets were entirely tied to the group. Anyone who left was shunned – members were banned from speaking or writing to them, and songs were sung at worship sessions about their betrayal. Over time, though, Philippa felt that same flicker of rebellion that had allowed her to speak up for her friend. She had never felt fully spiritually moved in the group's worship sessions. She never heard God speaking to her, or felt a genuine desire to speak in tongues. And now, as she sat through Stanton's sermons about traitors and liars, knowing they were directed at her, she became more and more uncertain about the religion that governed her life. She was haunted by the contradictions her experience had exposed: a Christian community that claimed to preach the truth was persecuting her for her honesty. She had been taught that the 'natural family' was meaningless, but her father and brother had been the ones to stand up for her. She struggled with depression, developed a stammer and began having stress-induced seizures. The leadership moved her to a fellowship house in Oxford, ostensibly to recuperate, though Philippa believes Stanton didn't want her 'anywhere near him'. The distance from Stanton and the church headquarters meant the community was more relaxed, and she got a non-fellowship job, working as an administrator at a pharmaceutical company. For the first time, she was given money from the common purse to buy clothes of her own, for work, that wouldn't be shared communally. She bought a couple of pencil skirts and a couple of blouses. Work, too, opened her mind. 'I was meeting people who were compassionate towards me, more so than the Christians I'd lived with all my life,' she said. 'I was shocked, I suppose, that that was able to happen.' Those who spend their childhoods in cults, Stein said, can find leaving particularly hard: 'They struggle to know what is the self, and what is the cult. It's very complex to try to untangle that.' In 1999, Philippa reached a decision: she would move out of the fellowship house, though she would continue to attend services. With her own income, she was able to move into a big shared rental in central Oxford. Everything was new. She had to set up a bank account for the first time. Shopping for food and cooking for herself was a revelation. 'I'd go to the shops almost every day, and I used to have stir-fries nearly every night because I couldn't believe the variety, and how good vegetables could taste after all those years of boiled carrots and cabbage,' she said. When she attended fellowship meetings and worship sessions, it felt different. She was now an outsider, a second-tier member. Her parents had moved out from their communal house shortly before she did. On top of the toll of the court case, her father was having health problems and couldn't keep up with the schedule of near-daily meetings. Unlike Philippa, her parents had fully left the fellowship, and they could see that her half-in, half-out status seemed only to be worsening her depression. Three months after Philippa moved out, she was about to set off for a fellowship meeting when her mum said she didn't want her to go. Philippa sat and cried for hours, knowing this really was the end. 'It was a visceral severing of all those relationships, all those friendships – your spiritual family.' Even decades later, she felt she hadn't fully escaped. Noel Stanton died in 2009, aged 82. His funeral procession attracted huge crowds on to the streets of Northampton, where screens beamed out footage of his fire-and-brimstone baptisms. By then, the church had about 3,500 members around the UK, as well as drop-in 'Jesus Centres' in Coventry and Northampton, which offered services to homeless people, asylum seekers and sex workers. Before his death, Stanton had become a distant figure, spending much of his time alone at New Creation Farm, handing down his rules through the network of elders, appointing five leaders called the Apostolic Group, who took over after his death. Stanton's death did not mark a clean break with the past: the culture he created endured, and the darker aspects of the Jesus Fellowship's history would not go away. In 2010, a volunteer gardener described by a judge as a 'relentless paedophile' was found guilty of indecent assault against three young boys while living in the fellowship in the late 1990s. He had previous child sexual abuse convictions, and it became clear in the course of the investigation that the fellowship had not been conducting proper background checks. It seemed plausible that similar cases might emerge. Public awareness of historic abuse was rising, especially after revelations about Jimmy Savile in 2012. Concerned about the future costs of legal battles with former members, in 2013 the company that insured the fellowship and its businesses requested that the leadership take an unusual step: to ask its members for stories of abuse. (In the same year, the Methodist church started a similar process.) The leadership began gathering their responses in a file. Separately, the following year, police received two safeguarding referrals in quick succession that highlighted welfare concerns within the fellowship. They arranged a meeting on 2 December 2014, to discuss one of them with the group's leadership. This was the kind of routine meeting that would normally be attended only by a junior officer, but two referrals from a single organisation raised a red flag for DI Ally White, so he decided to come along. At the meeting, White spotted a thick stack of papers: 133 responses sent in by fellowship members. He asked if he could take a look, and, flicking through, was shocked by what he saw. The papers contained allegations of everything from emotional abuse to serial sexual abuse: 'That's a crime, that's a crime, that's a rape, that's another crime,' he remembered thinking. He told the leadership the police would need to take the forms back to the station, and they agreed. White set a detective to work cataloguing them, and in early 2015 Northamptonshire police launched Operation Lifeboat, with five officers working under his supervision. 'I had never seen anything like it,' White said of the scale of the allegations. 'But then I don't know of any other organisation like the Jesus Fellowship.' At the time, on a national level, the fellowship was generally looked upon as an odd, but largely benevolent organisation that helped vulnerable people. Only months earlier, the Jesus Army had featured on a Grayson Perry series about contemporary Britain, described as a 'strong community' that helped homeless people. Perry said his evening with the group had been 'like a 1950s family Christmas'. DC Mark Allbright, who worked on Operation Lifeboat, grew up in Northamptonshire, and knew the Jesus Army by sight: 'Multicoloured camouflage-type jackets, colourful vans. You'd cross the street to avoid them in the town centre, that sort of thing.' Yet the contents of the file still came as a shock, both because of the sheer number of alleged victims and the fact that the majority of them had been children. 'The culture was a recipe for disaster,' Allbright told me. It was also clear to him that when abuse was reported, it wasn't dealt with: 'The accused was pretty much asked to say sorry to the person, and then that was that.' As police tracked down members and looked for evidence of crimes, Allbright's impression was that while some of the leadership wanted to 'root this out', others had 'shall we say, selective memories'. After another appeal by police, the number of reports had almost doubled, but most came from people who had seen or heard about abuse rather than experienced it themselves. Some alleged victims couldn't be traced; others, when contacted, denied that anything had happened, or didn't want police action to be taken. In total, only five people were convicted as part of Operation Lifeboat. The details of those convictions were disturbing: four of the five perpetrators had targeted children under the age of 16, and several were shown to be prolific. The fellowship commissioned an independent review into its safeguarding practices in 2015, yet it continued to blame these cases on a criminal minority, rather than a wider culture of abuse. The Jesus Army, they implied, had simply had the misfortune of attracting a few bad apples. In the two decades after she left the fellowship, Philippa built herself a life, plank by plank. She married, had children and lived in Germany for a year. Moving on had meant blocking out thoughts and news of the fellowship – she didn't even know Operation Lifeboat had taken place – but the cult still cast a shadow. She found it hard to stand up for herself, having had it drummed into her that individual wants were sinful. By 2017, she had moved back to Northamptonshire and was raising her two boys as a single mother, working as an administrative assistant in a school. Having noticed that a few other former members were living in the area, Philippa had an idea. Her older sister, who also lived nearby, struggled to connect with people who didn't share their history, but maybe, Philippa thought, she would feel more comfortable with people who did. In 2017, Philippa created a Facebook group, as a place where those who had also been in the fellowship as children could catch up and socialise. Within a week, more than 100 people had joined. As members reconnected and shared their memories, the tone quickly grew darker, as individuals began to share stories of abuse they had experienced while in the fellowship. So many allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse were being shared that Philippa and a few other group members set up a spreadsheet to keep track of them. A few months after the group was created, some of the members went out for dinner to catch up. 'We were just talking and getting to know each other again,' Philippa recalls. But through the evening, the conversation kept returning to the same themes: that former fellowship members needed more support, and that something had to be done about the abuse allegations. Based on what they were hearing now, Operation Lifeboat had barely scratched the surface. In 2018, 10 people from the group, including Philippa, launched the Jesus Fellowship Survivors Association, aiming to expose the truth about the church, support survivors and get justice for those who had been abused. Instead of pushing for a public inquiry or trying to bring multiple cases to court, a solicitor suggested that they should pressure the church to set up a 'redress scheme', like the one launched in response to abuse allegations at Lambeth children's homes. The Jesus Fellowship was believed to be worth about £58m, and a scheme like this would allow former members to apply for compensation without having to pursue a criminal case. One of the women who played a vital role in the fight for compensation was Becky Ayers. She had been brought into the fellowship as a seven-year-old child in 1976 and left in her 20s. Now, with one or two other members of the survivors' association, she began attending gruelling monthly meetings in a nondescript office block in Northampton, in which they tried to convince the fellowship's trustees to set up a redress scheme. At one meeting, Ayers presented a 'Truth Document', compiled by the survivors' association, which set out all the allegations that had been made on the Facebook page. She pushed the trustees to show it to the fellowship's membership. They refused. 'They were all completely entrenched,' Ayers said. She is an articulate, confident speaker, but in those meetings, she would freeze up, lose her words, even wonder if she had it all wrong. But the sheer number of survivors' stories, along with therapy sessions from a cult specialist, kept her going. Frustrated by the slow progress on a redress scheme, the survivors' association also began planning a group civil claim for 'sexual, physical and psychological harm' against children who lived in community houses. By this point, the fellowship was coming under pressure from all sides. In 2017, leaders had been forced to acknowledge at the church's AGM that there were 'serious allegations' against Stanton of financial, spiritual and sexual abuse. Later that year, the Apostolic Five stepped down, pending an independent investigation into their handling of abuse allegations. (In a recent statement, the Apostolic Five said they 'continue to hold out an unreserved apology to anyone who has been affected by abuse and failings of any kind in the Jesus Fellowship'.) Meanwhile, membership had dwindled to fewer than 1,000 people and was ageing rapidly, which was hitting the group's finances. As a senior leader told a new BBC documentary, Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army, there was a growing feeling that the fellowship was 'too broken to fix'. On 26 May 2019, at the recommendation of the church's leadership team, the fellowship's members voted to revoke the church's constitution: to shut the church down. The Jesus Fellowship Community Trust would be tasked with winding it up and moving ahead with a redress scheme. After years of fighting, this should have been a landmark moment for the survivors' association. But Philippa remembers it differently: 'There was never a point where we went: 'Yay, they're closing down!' It was a big achievement, but it was a side-effect of the fact they were going to have to pay out to people who they'd abused. That's not a happy thing.' The redress scheme was finally launched in September 2022. Former members could apply for compensation for emotional, physical or sexual abuse by submitting a statement via a solicitor. Kathleen Hallisey, who represented some of the claimants, believes the scheme would never have come about, nor had the reach it did, without the survivors' association. Previous appeals to speak had come from the church itself, or police. This time, it came from fellow survivors. The redress scheme received applications from 601 people, almost three times the number of complaints received by Operation Lifeboat. Claimants could also apply for a 'community adverse experiences' payment, which didn't require a solicitor's input. These payments were compensation for the group's 'systemic failings' – separating children from their parents, denying social interaction, treating women as subordinates – rather than specific acts of abuse. It was an acknowledgment that the fellowship environment was, in itself, harmful. (In UK law, there is no clear way to hold cults to account for their systems of control and exploitation. Hallisey, Stein and members of the survivors' association are pushing for the most applicable crime, coercive control, to be extended to cover groups, rather than just intimate or family relationships.) The redress scheme's final report, published in September 2024, was staggering. It found that there were 264 alleged abusers within the fellowship, of whom more than half were leaders. One in six children who lived in community was estimated to have been abused between 1969 and 2019. Over 30 allegations related to Stanton himself. The trustees wrote: 'Harm and abuse were not limited to a handful of leaders, a particular period of time, or geographical locations. It was widespread and systematic.' Of applicants to the scheme, 96% received some form of redress. Yet for some, the process, which involved reliving their abuse in order to make statements, was bruising. 'The scheme was horrific to go through,' Philippa said. 'After all that work, when it came to it, it was very, very hard.' Payments ranged from £2,000 for corporal punishment to £50,000 for incidents of rape. Philippa received a total of £22,000. Despite the size of the fellowship's assets, at the time of the report the redress scheme had paid out £7.7m, compared with more than £100m paid out by the Lambeth scheme, which received only twice as many applicants. Others felt that the structure of the scheme didn't reflect the reality of their experience. Sasha Feaver-Roche knew Philippa as a child, and was part of the fellowship for decades, yet because she hadn't lived in community for the required three months, she didn't qualify for this adverse experience payment. This meant that she had to apply only for individual redress, and demonstrate that she had suffered abuse, rather than receiving an acknowledgment that daily life in the cult – where she was branded a 'Jezebel', told to submit to her husband, and singled out by Noel Stanton for being Black – was harmful in itself. It was 'a bitter pill to swallow', she said. 'Because the fellowship's control – that was the worst bit. That's the bit I'm still trying to live with today.' The D3 bus from Northampton winds past fields of sunflowers and sandstone houses, down into Bugbrooke, past the chapel where the Jesus Fellowship began, past New Creation Hall, past the road to New Creation Farm and Shalom farmhouse, and on to Daventry, where Philippa lives now. 'Sometimes it feels surreal, being back here,' she told me recently, as we sat in her living room. 'There are lots of ghosts. But I realised I had been running away for a long time, and I wanted to be near my family again.' I first spoke to Philippa in 2022. The fellowship had closed, the redress scheme had just launched, and yet she still didn't feel she'd entirely left the cult. 'Living in it was like living under Big Brother,' she told me then. 'I still don't think I have completely uncoupled from that eye that was watching you all the time. And I don't know whether I ever will.' Three years on, she no longer felt that way. 'In the past few years, I feel I have properly mentally left,' she said. 'I've made more progress in the past eight months than I have in the past decade.' Trauma therapy helped. Another factor was realising that she has been a good parent. 'My sons can cry, or can say when something's not right, and we can chat about it.' That knowledge has healed some of the pain she carried from childhood of being told not to ask for help from her parents, of being told that her parents were not her parents any more. Last month, along with other survivors, Philippa attended a screening in Sheffield of the BBC's new documentary on the fellowship, which she participated in. 'The feeling of relief was immense,' she said of seeing the story play out on screen. 'I had been carrying that burden by myself for all that time.' These days, Philippa is a bubbly, friendly presence, fond of bright colours and quick to smile. Upstairs in her house, she showed me the craft room she set up earlier this year, and her artworks, made using pebbles found on the beach, pressed flowers, the foil from chocolate coins, the bells from Lindt bunnies. On an enormous canvas, the tail of a peacock was forming, each feather a recycled wrapper: Rowntree's, Jack Wills, pain relief patches. 'I take old things to make new things,' she said. 'I suppose I have a knack for that.' Some of the fellowship's congregations continue to operate as independent churches, and there are still those who look back on it fondly. On Facebook groups called 'Jesus Army 'The Good Times'' and 'Jesus People Alumni', former members swap stories and faded photos of group meals and worship sessions. Not long ago, I spoke with a member of one of these groups, Aidan. The fellowship had its flaws, he said – it was 'too trusting', and he took part in the redress scheme based on some of his own experiences – but he was saddened by the idea of it being remembered as wholly negative. 'Living in community really broadened your horizons,' he said. 'I feel massively enriched by the people that I met.' He pointed to those it had helped: 'The people helped out of addiction, the lonely brought into the family.' Even fierce critics of the fellowship sometimes struck a wistful or ambivalent note when speaking about it. 'As much as I hate the place, there's that feeling of community that you miss,' said Feaver-Roche. 'That feeling of belonging.' She and Philippa reconnected during the redress scheme, and now they live around the corner from one another. They often meet up for coffee and talk about the fellowship, or other aspects of their lives: 'For me, it's been really important to hang on to these friendships. They're a reminder that what happened to us wasn't normal,' Feaver-Roche said. When she sees ex-members, 'We'll make little inside jokes about The Handmaid's Tale, because the language was so similar.' Over the years, Philippa has returned again and again to that moment when she decided to testify on behalf of her friend. 'I'm really proud of that 17-year-old self, who went to court and had the courage to tell the truth,' she said. Philippa still wonders where she found that conviction to stand up to the leadership, after years of indoctrination so deep it has taken a lifetime to undo. The answer, Stein suggested, lies in the kinds of reciprocal, human connections the cult did its best to smother, like the one Philippa had with Marie, or her dad, or her brother or, later, with other survivors. 'Cults can have very powerful control, but they can't turn people into robots,' Stein said. 'We're still human. And even in the worst of circumstances, we create these little niches of humanity.' In Philippa's kitchen, a red and white sign hangs by the sink. 'In this home,' it reads, 'we are family.' * Name has been changed Listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.
The National
30 minutes ago
- The National
The ban on Palestine Action is to scare folk into passivity
Most professionals and papers are distancing themselves from the 'terrorist' group Palestine Action (PA), and thus – to be on the safe side – from the whole genocide in Gaza. But others are stepping forward to highlight the most serious assault on our freedoms since the Diplock Courts sat without juries in Northern Ireland during the 1980s. Back then, bombings and assassinations killed many. Now, paint has been thrown and railings crashed. It's hardly a parallel. But Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are throwing the book at anyone who dares combine the words Palestine and action in the same sentence or T-shirt. Maybe. READ MORE: Man-made famine in Gaza 'most severe' since Second World War, expert warns As Raza Husain KC argued at the PA appeal in London on Monday, there is 'rampant uncertainty' in the aftermath of a ban which carries 'all the hallmarks of an authoritarian and blatant abuse of power'. Obviously, that's the intention. To scare folk into passivity. It's a shameful, cowardly strategy that mustn't be normalised or meekly accepted, tempting as it is to conform. Three people who attended Edinburgh's Palestine Solidarity march on Saturday were arrested days after Sean Clerkin in Glasgow. It's not totally clear what their 'offences' were, but holding a sign; 'Genocide in Palestine, time to take action' was enough to get Sean lifted. Meanwhile, Kent Police threatened a woman with the Terrorism Act for a sign that read 'Free Gaza' without any reference to PA. How was that an arrestable offence? Meanwhile, three folk with more profile – Alba leader Kenny MacAskill, former SNP MP Tommy Sheppard and myself – said the same thing last Saturday in Edinburgh. Indeed, I was filmed saying the words 'Palestine needs action', with at least six police in view and 3000-4000 people roaring their approval. Now, I'm not trying to court arrest. It's a scary prospect. Supporting PA means up to six months in prison. Being a member of the group can mean up to 14 years in jail. And the real heroes are not here in the UK but trailing Gaza every day, searching for safety and scavenging for food with hope and dignity almost completely stripped away. It's that tiny shred of hope any person of conscience must feel obliged to nurture. But not our MPs. In a Commons' vote three weeks ago – where the SNP shamefully abstained on account of PA being bunched with other groups – 385 MPs voted to ban the group. It's important to note this was the first time a non-violent direct action campaign group has ever been proscribed. Where's the reaction? READ MORE: Labour are creating uncertainty and acting against democratic freedom Here in Scotland, why has there not been a peep from Scotland's justice minister about the justice of arresting T-shirt-wearing protesters? Will the Lord Advocate clarify that talking about action for Palestine will not be considered a terrorist offence in Scotland – whatever politicians south of the Border advise. Indeed, while we're at it, why doesn't John Swinney make this the subject of a follow-up event on the dangers of the far-right in public life? Yes, I realise the Terrorism Act is a reserved issue and Holyrood can't change or duck it. But our law officers and government ministers can produce guidance on what actions constitute support for terrorists. Doing that means activists would be saved stress and jail, police would be saved time – as they tackle the private visit of Donald Trump – and the law would be saved from being an ass. Scottish Government – you're allowed to have a view. You're allowed to protect your own citizens. And you're allowed to take a side, supporting peaceful campaigners who support the citizens of Gaza and the tradition of policing by consent. In the absence of a distinctive Scottish stance though, some professionals are taking a side. Like Blinne Nessa Áine Ní Ghrálaigh KC – the Irish human rights lawyer who led this week's legal challenge against PA's proscription in London. Clearly, from the stubborn retention of her full beautiful Irish name, she's not a gal who toes the line. In 2017, she secured an acquittal for activists Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse, arrested for trying to disarm Typhoon jets they believed were bound for Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen. Ní Ghrálaigh also represented one of the Colston Four charged with toppling the Colston statue in Bristol in 2020. The jury acquitted the protesters in January 2022, and The Times named Ní Ghrálaigh Lawyer of the Week. It's worth knowing such people exist. Last year, Ní Ghrálaigh was part of the South African legal team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which accused Israel of genocide. The court ordered Israel to observe the Genocide Convention, and enable basic services and humanitarian assistance. As we all know, that hasn't happened. And the court did shrink from ordering Israel to stop its military campaign. But the ICJ judgment was the first powerful international intervention against the IDF. Then Ní Ghrálaigh pointed out that Gaza was the first genocide in history to be broadcast 'in real-time' with 'dehumanising genocidal rhetoric' used by Israeli governmental and military officials, including that 'terrible new' acronym WCNSFs (Wounded Child, No Surviving Family). READ MORE: Doing the right thing for Gaza would gain the SNP more support Ni Ghralaigh won 'Tatler Woman of the Year Award' in November after her ICJ intervention and dedicated it to the women of Palestine. 'The women of Palestine will build Gaza again from the rubble and destruction as they have before, like women do the world over. 'May the future finally be women-led. May it be led by brilliant, fierce, intelligent, and compassionate women like our mothers and grandmothers before us.' This week, Ni Ghralaigh's words shocked again as she told the Royal Court of Justice that Merseyside Police have bailed protesters on condition they don't mention Palestine. 'People have been bailed to not mention Palestine?' Justice Chamberlain asked, with Ni Ghralaigh replying: 'It is a condition of bail that they do not mention Palestine. 'The Secretary of State has not distanced herself from any of these actions,' adding that Yvette Cooper had not even described such actions as an 'overreach'. This is the fearless, clear-eyed interrogation needed to tackle Starmer's outrageous act of political censorship. Where are the rest?
Times
42 minutes ago
- Times
The happy family formula — how a parenting coach could help you
Parenting is one of the most important and consequential tasks a person can do, and yet none of us is given parenting lessons. This might be why the whole thing, from changing nappies to wrangling recalcitrant teenagers, can feel so terrifying and lonely, and that's where a parenting coach comes in. These highly trained professionals don't just offer advice, they also help to build confidence — because, as one of the most famous parenting coaches, Connie Simpson, explains: 'The biggest mistake parents make is not believing in themselves.' 'Parenting is an act of relationship building,' says the award-winning parenting coach Anita Cleare (MA AdvDip). 'I try to break it down to the really simple things that make a difference to both parents and children — things like, 'How do I connect with my child when I'm tired at the end of the day?'' With nearly two decades of experience working with parents, Cleare knows a thing or two about parenting. Her speciality is supporting working parents. After working in a local authority children's services for nine years — while also being a single parent to her own two children — Cleare saw first-hand the difficulty parents face when they attempt to juggle a career with being the world's best parent. So, 13 years ago, she set out to become a solution — it was then that the Positive Parenting Project, her parent coaching business, was born. The luxury of a parenting coach is not only reassurance that you are probably not doing as badly as you think you are, but also a second opinion (and a qualified one at that). A degree in developmental psychology (child development) and a Triple P parenting accreditation means Cleare is well qualified to help. Based in Windsor, the parenting coach (who has shared her wisdom on the comedian Katherine Ryan's reality show, At Home with Katherine Ryan) offers one-to-ones — whether they be home visits, Zoom calls or within the workplace. It could be a one-session fix or a regular occurrence. There is no ideal number of sessions — she works case by case. She is also often employed by companies to do webinars or parenting sessions that allow employees to book time with her to discuss any parenting concerns they are having. 'There's a lot of working parent guilt,' Cleare explains, but 'being a parent is hard and there's no ideal way to do this'. What Cleare does is to 'try and translate what we know from evidence about children to help parents understand their children, so that they can focus on what matters — and what matters is relationship'. Parenting tip When returning from a long, gruelling day in the office, an easy hack to put away the work worries and reconnect with your child 'is before you even either pick your child up or come home to stop for a minute and just think about your child and imagine their face', or think of a memory with them, or even what they smell like. This flicks the switch — turning off work mode and turning on parent mode. Anita Cleare's prices vary. For parents, an initial 60-minute Zoom session costs £175. A home visit starts at £350 plus travel fees. Fees for corporate clients are available on request. She has published two books: How to Get Your Teenager out of Their Bedroom and The Working Parent's Survival Guide Having started her career in journalism — spending over a decade as the editor-in-chief and contributing editor of Parents magazine — Ann Pleshette Murphy changed direction. She has subsequently written parenting books, been the parenting correspondent for Good Morning America and chaired the board of the Greyston Foundation (which at that time provided housing, social services and childcare for formerly homeless families). She also completed a master's degree in psychology/child development, which ultimately led to her becoming a therapist — specialising in parents. Murphy has a private practice in London where she works with couples, individuals and families. 'I don't have a rigid method,' she says. 'I would say I have an eclectic toolbox.' This can include an increasingly popular practice — co-therapy — which involves working with two therapists of differing specialities to blend their individual strengths into a personalised solution for the parents. Murphy's style often focuses on the parents' relationship, as she says the most common issues she deals with occur when '[as parents] we don't feel aligned — and that can be over any number of things. It can be about discipline. It can be about how much time we spend with our respective families or in-laws. It can be about our sex life … What your kids need more than anything is for you to nurture your relationship.' While Murphy works with a lot of high-powered parents, she also works with stay-at-home parents, soon-to-be parents and everything in between. Whether her clients need a one-off session or a twice-a-week crisis prevention system, Murphy adapts her methods to the specific problem at hand. 'My job is to help [parents] try to figure out what has caused them to get stuck in a pattern and to see how they can change their own behaviour' — to improve both their life and their child's. Parenting tip What we all know but refuse to accept is the need to reduce screen time — for life in general and specifically around the kids. But the reason why might make your ears prick up. 'We know from research … that children learn much better and read much faster by being put in your lap and read to that way' rather than with a screen, she says. 'The feeling of comfort and love affects your wiring — it's a completely different emotional experience and let's just say it produces a different set of hormones, if you're being held by somebody who's reading.' She adds: 'That kind of serve and return that we do with babies when we're looking at them and the baby is gurgling at Mummy … is unbelievably important for brain development.' Funnily enough, that happens far less when the parent or child's eyes are glued to the screen. Ann Pleshette Murphy's fees vary, and her sessions (for individuals or couples) range from 1 hour to 90 minutes and can be in-person or over video call. Her private practice is in St John's Wood, London. She has published two books, The Seven Stages of Motherhood and The Secret of Play What does 25 years as a deputy head teacher make you? Brave, yes. Stressed, perhaps. But also, an excellent parenting coach. Atkins, who is now the parenting expert for ITV's This Morning, always loved teaching children but when she pondered her future, she thought, 'Do I want to teach the Vikings for another 20 years?' So when it came to deciding on her next career — shaped by her experiences dealing with the pastoral care of the kids in her school — she decided she wanted to help build children's self-esteem. And the best way to do that? Help the parents. '[Parents are] the first people to give their children that confidence, that resilience, that ability to bounce back, that ability to think they're good enough. And that means that as adults they won't settle for a bad relationship, a bad job, or they'll aspire to greater things because they believe they can,' she says. • Read more parenting advice, interviews, real-life stories and opinion here Atkins set up her parents coaching business 17 years ago. Based in Surrey, she offers one-to-one virtual sessions with parents. She also holds business 'power hour' sessions in-office, allowing employees access to her parental advice within their working day. Atkins is happy to be flexible, doing what it takes until the issue is resolved. 'I'm a bit like the stabilisers on the bike,' she says. After working together to sort the problem, 'you ride off without me'. In terms of qualifications, Atkins is an NLP Master Practitioner, with specific training in psychology. 'I'm all about empowerment, not rescue,' she says. Parenting tip Learn the magic of limited choices. It is human nature to struggle with choice — decisions are as tricky for a child as they are for a grown-up. If we have no choice, we rebel. If we have too many choices, we get flustered, throw a strop and opt for none of them. But if we are given a limited number of choices, we love the control. The same applies to children. If you need your child to put on a jumper, instead of simply ordering them to do it and face their inevitable rebellion, give them a choice: 'Do you want to wear your blue jumper or your red jumper?' Atkins says. 'What's implied is that you are wearing your jumper because it's the middle of winter' — but you are giving the kids the choice. Sue Atkins offers pay-as-you-go sessions for £147 an hour and package deals that start at £400 for 3 x 60-minute coaching sessions or 6 x 60-minute coaching sessions for £750. She has published multiple books, including Parenting Made Easy, The Can-Do Kid's Journal and The Divorce Journal for Kids, and has a new podcast, Navigating the Digital Jungle For many parents, it isn't the daytime care of the baby that gets to them, it's the sleep (or lack of). Heidi Skudder started her career as a sleep coach, on duty from 9pm to 7am. She would care for her clients' children, lulling them into sleep and training them to be better sleepers so that the parents could sleep better themselves. Skudder decided to set up her own parent coaching business, Positively Parenthood, 15 years ago — which covers a wide range of parenting issues but with a speciality in sleep coaching. Skudder has a background in nannying and a mother who was a child minder. Now with 20 years of childcare experience, a master's in psychology, qualifications in coaching and three young children of her own, her business just keeps growing. Offering one-to-one sessions, either over zoom or at clients' homes, she primarily focuses on parents of young children. Although she is based in London, her clients are worldwide. 'I have lots of clients around the country, but also in countries like America, Canada, Dubai, wherever there are parents, which is obviously everywhere,' she says. Companies (often in the finance or legal spheres) also employ Skudder for clinic days. These involve going into corporations where parents can volunteer to come to her with any questions, queries or concerns. They also offer 'lunch and learns' where Skudder will hop online for an hour at lunch and speak to people from the business about their parental concerns. These corporate parent coaching sessions are becoming increasingly popular as studies have shown that sleep deprivation is estimated to cost the UK economy £40 billion annually — whether it be reduced productivity or increased absenteeism. Not only do parents benefit from parent coaches — so does the economy. Parenting tip 'Screens play the part of TV nanny, as we call it,' Skudder says. But it is having a negative impact on children's behaviour. Screens give you a dopamine high — which means what quickly follows is the dopamine crash. 'So then you get the tantrums, then you become the shouty mum and then you wonder what's going on with your child … but actually you just need to cut back on screen time.' Both the child's and parent's screen-time play a part in this. 'A lot of behaviour comes from just wanting to be with you a bit more, to have a bit more of your time and a bit more of your energy' — time and energy that parents aren't giving when they are on their phones. Private sessions with Heidi Skudder at Positively Parenthood cost £395 for a sleep-clinic session, which includes an hour clinic in person or on Zoom, weekly check-ins for the following month and access to sleep courses that help to train your baby to sleep well. Prices for other services available on her website or on request. She has recently published her first book, Your Positive Baby Sleep Book Connie Simpson, fondly known as Nanny Connie, was born and bred to nanny and nurture. She grew up jumping at any chance to babysit her younger cousins, and naturally slipped into the nannying world. Given her mother was a nurse and her grandmother was a midwife, she believes the nurturing quality runs deep in her family. For Simpson, it is hugely gratifying when her advice 'starts to change [parents] or empower them in their parenting'. Mainly through word of mouth, her name started to spread across the US — so much so that celebrities (such as Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake, John Krasinski and Emily Blunt) began coming to her for parental help. But fret not, her clientele is not exclusively star-studded — she works with us mere mortals all over the globe too. According to Simpson 'the most common mistake parents make is not believing in themselves and not having that belief in themselves means they'll try something for a minute and if they're getting too much pushback … they don't stay consistent'. She likens it to growing a plant, if you are consistent the roots will grow strong — parents may not see the benefits of their consistency all the time as the roots are under the surface. But she encourages parents to 'just keep watering, just keep fertilising, just keep making sure that it is protected and cared for and the beauty will be seen in that tree when it grows'. What sets Connie apart from other parenting coaches? As well as offering private coaching consultations for parents to discuss any issues they have and nanny mentoring sessions to aid new nannies in their own careers, Simpson does home visits where she watches the parents interact with their child and can then help them at a more hands-on level. Most of her consultations are held online and clients can choose however many sessions they require as Connie says 'parenting is not something I can give you a box of five sessions'. Parenting tip Keeping the conversation open between parents and children is essential when it comes to social media. Remind them that what you see online is often not what you see in real life. 'We aren't putting the disclaimer on social media the same way we are putting a disclaimer on other things in our kids' lives,' Simpson says. 'When they watch Star Wars the first thing you do is remind them that's not real — so why can't we put the same disclaimer on [social media]?' Based in the US, Nanny Connie offers parenting consultations starting at $125 for a 45-minute video session. Other services available on request. She has also published a book, The Nanny Connie Way
