Wes Streeting: Labour’s ‘poster boy’ wants to shake up NHS

Not many people in Westminster can name the Krays, armed robberies and their mother who was born in prison when summarizing their family background.

But Wes Streeting, currently Labour’s shadow health secretary and often tipped as a future party leader, is not typical of most politicians.

The 41-year-old MP for Ilford North has emerged as one of the loudest and most outspoken voices on Sir Keir Starmer’s front bench, seemingly embodying what Labor HQ believes is most likely to attract The type of information voters voted for in the 10th place. Just a few months.

Streeting is an unusually direct communicator in these increasingly chaotic times, unafraid to depart from Labour’s long-standing orthodoxy and mainstream progressive views in the service of his own unique brand of so-called straightforward and “common sense” politics .

This was particularly evident this week as he reiterated his intention to increase private access to the NHS to help reduce waiting lists, in a typically strong appeal to readers. sun newspaper.

Labour’s shadow health secretary has warned that the NHS will not receive extra funding from his department without “major surgery” and reforms, insisting he is “ready to fight” the health unions and will not be “middle-class lefties” ” cries scare away the “betrayal” of privatization.

Despite not being any materially different from what Streeting has been preaching for years, the boxing article – softened by a reference to his own experience with kidney cancer at the age of 38 – still managed to go viral on social media on Monday. There was attention in the media and critics spread his words. Communicate a broad message to otherwise unreached voters.

Indeed, Streeting has risen rapidly among the backbenchers since the fall of Jeremy Corbyn and has become one of the most familiar faces in Starmer’s tightly controlled frontbench. is a passionate and constant critic.

But amid talk that Streeting might one day hold the keys to throne No. 10, his own path to Downing Street will be a far cry from the Eton route taken by many before him.

Born in 1983 to teenage parents who later separated, Streeting grew up in a council flat in London’s East End. daily mail Many of his “views on the law of order” – as well as his Christian faith – can be traced back to his grandfather. Streeting said he was a former merchant seaman, a “self-reliant working-class Tory who only voted Liberal to exclude Labor” and was “very proud of the Queen and country”.

The question of law and order was a prominent one in the Streeting family history.

In his autobiography, A boy, two bills and a fried foodStreeting recalls how his maternal grandfather, Bill Crowley, a “career criminal” the Clay family knew – Streeting would visit him in prison in elementary school – was carrying out armed Wearing a weird rubber mask during the robbery, He named it Claude.

It is believed that Streeting’s mother Corinna may have even been born in prison, while his grandmother Libby Crowley was serving time at HMP Holloway for crimes related to her husband – where she shared a cell with model and showgirl Christine Keeler. At the heart of the Profumo scandal.

Streeting also previously said his grandfather’s relationship with his mother was “toxic and sometimes violent.” era He told how, when he was two, his mother entered into an abusive relationship with an “extremely violent” man who once “hanged my mum’s sister from the balcony and threatened to throw her away as a form of coercive control” a part of”.

The man was jailed before Streeting could remember that period, and Streeting has previously described his mother’s absolute determination to prove herself after she considered an abortion and “decided to keep me.” Be a mother.”

“When I was growing up, there were always books on the shelves. I’m not going to make you feel stupid like I did growing up,” she said. ” Streeting said last Junedescribing his “promoting mission” in politics as “making sure that kids from backgrounds like mine have the security and opportunities they need to realize every bit of their potential. When you grow up in poverty and emerge from poverty, you gain Insight and a special responsibility to help address poverty.”

Although Streeting himself had no memory of the violence in the early relationship, when he arrived at school in central London he described himself as “a sensitive kid, a bit campy and effeminate” with “scars all over his body” Proved that.”

“When I sat my GCSEs I felt like I was surviving rather than thriving in Westminster,” he writes in Westminster.Mirror. Encouraged by her teachers, the teenage Streeting applied to join a summer school at Cambridge University, run by the Sutton Trust charity.

Streeting went on to apply to Cambridge University and in 2001 gained a place to read history at Selwyn College, where he came out as gay the following year.

“Coming out in Cambridge felt liberating. Coming home felt terrifying,” he wrote, but recalled eventually telling his father, He said: “It didn’t take long for us to deal with any lingering awkwardness the way our Streeting family always does: with humor. I felt loved and accepted.”

Streeting soon became involved in student politics and reportedly briefly quit the Labor Party over his opposition to the Iraq War. He first came to prominence as president of the National Union of Students, serving two terms between 2008 and 2010, supporting the then-Union of Students. – Labor policy on university tuition fees opposed by Liberal Democrats.

He later became chief executive of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, which focused on social mobility, and head of education at LGBT+ rights charity Stonewall, before working as a public sector consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Streeting entered local politics as a Labor councilor in 2010 and served as deputy leader of Redbridge Council before resigning after becoming a councilor in May 2015.

Streatling claimed in 2020 that he had turned down repeated requests to sit on Corbyn’s frontbench because “there was no way I could be involved”, citing “fundamental” concerns about antisemitism, Labour’s ” Bullying culture’, Corbyn’s response to the Salisbury attack, and ‘I cannot credibly tell my own constituents the endless wish list we can deliver on’.

Instead, while actively seeking to replace Corbyn, notably during a coup in 2016, Streeting rose to prominence as a member of the cross-party Treasury Committee and was later given the role of shadow finance minister by Sir Keir. .

While he was forced to apologize in 2022 after calling Corbyn an “old man” and later branding him an “albatross around Labour’s neck”, he instead On Sir Keir in 2020: “He is fundamentally a decent man, and that’s important. He has great integrity.” The 2021 Labor leader described Streeting as a friend and colleague.

The confirmation from his boss comes as Streeting announced he would temporarily retire from politics after being diagnosed with kidney cancer, just days after being promoted to shadow child poverty secretary. While it “would have been an opportune moment to get involved in politics”, Streeting did the opposite and was promoted to shadow health secretary just a few months later.

A guardian The article later suggested that Streeting’s illness “has made him a champion of patients who simply will not allow the government to use the pandemic as an excuse for now-frightening NHS waiting lists”.

Since taking the briefing, Streeting has not been restrained by Labour’s views on the NHS and has regularly parked tanks on Tory lawns, making him no stranger to criticism from the left or the health service. . , particularly when he argued that GPs were asking for “money to replace old ropes” during the Covid vaccination campaign.

Since his first months in office, Streeting has called for greater private sector involvement to help reduce NHS waiting lists, but he has insisted on privatizing the health service.Can’t be further from my politicsvalues ​​or goals”.

He also differed markedly from his Labor colleagues in responding to questions about trans rights often raised by right-wing commentators, telling TalkRadio’s Julia Hartley-Brewer in March 2022: “Men have Penis, women have vaginas, that’s the end of my biology class,” adding: “That doesn’t mean there aren’t people who transition to other genders because they experience gender dysphoria, and we should acknowledge that and treat those people with respect. rights and dignity.”

In March, he stole the headlines Tell telegraph He wants the NHS to stop “doing the right things and doing stupid things – well-intentioned things – in the name of diversity and inclusion”.

But Streeting may think this approach will be good for him and his party, and will ultimately do the same for voters.On his stance on private involvement in the NHS, he told new statesman March 2023: “It’s pragmatic and absolutely popular with the swing voters we need to win over. I don’t think I can look someone in the eye and say: ‘I’m sorry, I know your grandmother could have had her hip in a private hospital Or knee replacement surgery, but my principles mean she can’t.'”

He responded to this on Monday today Show: “That’s why when outcry comes, as mentioned on my social media this morning, I take it as water off a duck’s back.”

With Labour’s huge lead in the polls unabated, Streeting may well have reason to feel vindicated – indeed, when he expressed hope that a future Labor government would enact long-term investment and social security reforms Sounds very optimistic. This can build consensus across differences and last for generations, as we did on the NHS in 1948.”

“I don’t know if the Conservatives are going to be in a reasonable position to have a reasonable conversation,” he added.