He survived cancer, his granddad was armed robber & hates woke ‘nonsense’ – now Wes Streeting is on mission to save NHS
AS would-be Health Secretaries go, Wes Streeting is more of a “do as I say, not what I do” man.
He likes a drink, admits to piling on half a stone and works the sort of brutal hours that send cortisol levels rising.
But as a cancer survivor and passionate advocate of the NHS — one filled with genuinely innovative ideas of how to save it — he is perhaps the only politician in Britain who really can make a difference.
“Oh, I’m an unashamed champagne socialist but that is what aspiration is all about,” he says refreshingly (but not well-refreshed, thankfully).
“But I am also partial to a pint, which isn’t perhaps ideal when you only have one kidney.
“What’s my weekly unit intake? “Technically, I’m not sure . . . I think my public health approach is probably ‘do as I say and not as I do’.
“It’s why I always try to be realistic about what we can expect people to do in terms of their own health and wellbeing.
“I’m normally quite honest with my GP now, but only because I’m Shadow Health Secretary, so I feel duty-bound to be honest.
“But no one else tells the truth, and I think doctors know that as well.
“Surviving cancer, having surgery to remove a kidney, has made me think more about my life and how I want to spend it and what I really value in life.
“In some ways it’s been a life-affirming experience, in a way I would not have expected.”
As well as sessions with a personal trainer, the Labour MP for Ilford North swims twice a week — but has been unable to shift the 7lb he put on over Christmas, he says.
Woke madness
Has he tried the fat jab?
“Er, what are you trying to say?!” he asks, mildly horrified, from his riverside office at Westminster’s Portcullis House. (He hasn’t, but strongly believes that semaglutide — originally used to treat Type 2 diabetes, but now being prescribed to seriously overweight patients — is a crucial weapon in the war against obesity.)
Appointed Shadow Health Secretary in November 2021, he is a passionate campaigner for structural change within the beleaguered NHS.
As well as cutting the bureaucracy, and overpaid middle managers, tech will play a big part in his plans to reform our crumbling health system if/when Labour get in later this year.
Crucially, he also wants to ditch the virtue-signalling, woke madness that has slowly been creeping into the system — one with almost eight million people still on a waiting list.
When I tell him my 75-year-old father was asked if he could be pregnant during a recent check-up, he responds with not as much incredulity as you might expect, had this sort of madness not been about for the past few years.
“It’s loopy,” he grimaces, over a cup of coffee. “I just think it infantilises doctors and it doesn’t leave patients with a good impression either.
“If you’re a bloke sat there being asked if you’re pregnant, you scratch your head like, ‘You’re meant to know some basics of anatomy here and a lot more — because you’re a doctor’.
“I think it doesn’t help, that kind of nonsense. Bring back common sense doctoring, put money into that continuity of care, that family- doctor relationship.
“Patients obviously value it and I think in a lot of cases, particularly if they are part of that generation that had that, they miss it.”
A relative whippersnapper at 41, Wes is hot on technology being key to making the NHS a world-beater once again.
In Singapore, every hospital patient is given an iPad.
From here, they can check their stats themselves, chat remotely to staff, press a button when they are in pain and order a cup of coffee.
Under Wes’s tenure, iPads could well be coming bedside.
So how far are we from an AI doctor? And is he concerned that more technology will put us more at risk of international hacking from Putin and Co?
Forget Dr Google — “every doctor in the country hates that” — he reckons that under Labour, one day we may have an AI one.
He adds: “AI is already being used in analysis of scans, with promising results. For example, where we have two doctors looking at a scan, if we can replace one pair of eyes with AI it would double capacity.
“Our commitment is to double the number of diagnostic scanners.
“They are AI scanners that can be more accurate and get people through faster.
“What excites me about the ‘med tech’ is that it offers all sorts of opportunities and could save the NHS huge capacity, time and money.
“But we definitely need to take cyber security seriously.”
Ostensibly we are here today to discuss the release of the paperback version of his heartfelt autobiography, One Boy, Two Bills And A Fry Up.
An unorthodox title, perhaps, but it is a nod to his very un-politician-like upbringing.
I don’t want there to be a ceiling on the ambitions of any young LGBT person in our country
Wes Streeting
While so many MPs, past and present, have lived a life of unmitigated privilege, Wesley Paul William Streeting did not.
His grandad — one of the Bills from the title — served time for armed robbery, his grandmother shared a cell with Christine Keeler, and he grew up on a council estate in Stepney, East London.
This is not a man who wore a white tie after a day’s shooting with the Bullingdon Club.
It is not an easy read in places, but it is clear that Wes is someone who knows about the fight to “heat or eat”.
A reviewer from The Guardian described the book — “I was determined it was not going to be a misery memoir, I wanted my story to be one of family love, and tell the story in my own terms” — as a “statement of intent from a future Prime Minister”.
So would he like to be Britain’s first openly gay PM? (He has been with fiancé Joe Dancey for nearly 12 years, “the longest engagement in history”.)
“Ha, that’s a good question because yeah, we have probably had one or two or more before,” he muses.
“I don’t want there to be a ceiling on the ambitions of any young LGBT person in our country.
“Every time I have answered this question directly it leads to unhelpful headlines. I am very happy with my lot in life.”
I’ll take that as a “yes” then.
‘Fought from the gutter’
It is evident though that he is a huge champion of current leader Keir Starmer — “The ‘Sir’ Keir Starmer business [annoys me].
It’s not because he’s posh, it’s because he has worked hard and got to the top of his profession.”
He is scathing of Rishi Sunak’s recent suggestion there could be a hung parliament after the General Election.
“You can tell Rishi is scraping the barrel,” he says with a laugh. “What sort of state must he and the Conservative Party be in to say it could be worse?
“We are fighting for a majority, we are not interested in deals or back-room stitch-ups or fixes.
“The last thing this country needs is a coalition of chaos. They have that at the minute with the Conservatives, which is one of the reasons I think he has a cheek talking about chaos. He is Captain Chaos.”
It is Wes’s determination to call things out, and say it as he sees it, which has also landed him in hot water.
Sadly, like many MPs, he has received death threats in the wake of previous comments on Gaza.
He has now been given personal security, and liaised with police about protection measures.
Sadiq Khan is a mayor for all Londoners and I felt a responsibility to speak out about the tide of racism he has experienced, but also some of the failures in the Conservative Party
Wes Streeting
For a while he had to stop taking the Tube to work.
Last week he came under fire for a tweet about Tory London Mayoral candidate Susan Hall.
He wrote: “A win for Susan Hall and the Conservatives is a win for racists, white supremacists and Islamophobes . . . Susan Hall’s campaign has been fought from the gutter, with dangerous and divisive politics.”
A tweet that is, surely, fairly dangerous and divisive in itself.
But no, he stands by his messaging. He believes the Tory Party does have a racism problem, despite boasting the country’s first Asian leader (something he applauds).
While Labour, under Starmer, has done its best to clean out its own house in the wake of insidious anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn, he says: “I do think the Conservative Party has a problem and I do think they should call it out.
“Sadiq Khan is a mayor for all Londoners and I felt a responsibility to speak out about the tide of racism he has experienced, but also some of the failures in the Conservative Party.
“In the case of Susan Hall, do I think she is a white supremacist? Or do I think she is an Islamophobe? Or do I even think she is a racist?
“I don’t think so, but I noticed on so many occasions, including Lee Anderson’s claim that Sadiq was run by Islamists, she didn’t speak out and condemn it. The silence is almost as bad as the racism.
“It pains me sometimes that it is often left to people who are victims of racism to speak up.
“In the Tory Party, why was it left to Sajid Javid to force action on Lee Anderson?
“Sayeeda Warsi seems to be fighting a one-woman battle as a former chair of the party.
“I don’t think they should be left on their own, in the same way when anti-Semitism was rife in the Labour Party, I made it my business to stand with Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger, Ruth Smeeth and Louise Ellman because I feel that is our responsibility.”
The Tories may have a racism problem but does Labour not have a woman one? While the Conservatives have had three female PMs, Labour have never had a woman at the top of the political food chain.
No, he insists. “We have some incredibly strong women. I have been around the Shadow Cabinet table and you see incredible women — Rachel Reeves, who looks set to be our first female Chancellor if we win, Yvette Cooper, Shabana Mahmood, Bridget Phillipson, and of course Angela Rayner.
“I have no doubt we are going to see Labour’s first female leader in my lifetime, a Labour female Prime Minister in my lifetime.”
And quite probably the first (brilliant) gay one.
Jail, positivity and politics
WITH a grandmother who gave birth to his mum in Holloway Prison – and a grandfather who was a friend of fearsome gangsters the Kray Twins – it’s fair to say Wes did not have the usual politician’s upbringing.
His mum was just 18 when she had her son, and Wes grew up in poverty in a council flat in East London – with five brothers, a sister and a step-sister.
His gran Libby once shared a prison cell with Christine Keeler, the showgirl whose affair with the Conservative Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, in 1961 is one of the most well-known political scandals.
It is believed Libby was in Holloway after refusing to grass up her burglar husband Bill.
Wes visited Bill in jail in the late 1980s, but he was closest to his other grandad, also called Bill, a working-class Tory who served in World War Two and became a civil engineer.
At comprehensive school, Wes got three As at A-level and went on to study history at Cambridge.
He was president of the National Union of Students before working for the Labour Party, gay rights charity Stonewall and top accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
He became a Labour councillor at Redbridge Borough Council in East London in 2010 and an MP in 2015.
Quickfire round
LAST time you Googled yourself?
It’s normally several times a week, to look at my Google news alerts to see what trouble I’ve got myself into.
EVER taken drugs?
No, I have never taken any drugs and I have kind of seen, growing up, the damage that drugs do and that is why I have always steered clear.
I haven’t even got close to the point of inhaling. Or vaped.
LAST TV series you binged?
EVER been asked to do a reality TV show?
No, but I would love to do Strictly.
“Sorry, Keir, I’m not around after the General Election, I’m off to do Strictly Come Dancing . . . !”
NAUGHTIEST thing you’ve done?
Probably getting drunk at school at a teacher’s leaving do and helping myself to the wine with the other drama kids.
I was smashed and vomited on myself on the Tube home.
MOST listened-to song?
Olivia Rodrigo’s Vampire. And I’m a secret Swiftie . . . well, not so secret now.
GREATEST PM in history?
I’d say Clement Attlee for the post-war consensus and creating the welfare state.
AND the worst PM in history?
Liz Truss – who was beaten by a lettuce.
WHAT’S the vainest thing you do?
I don’t do anything like facials, but I get my hair cut fortnightly, which is quite a lot for a man.
MOST annoying habit?
I should ask Joe. Not turning the oven off when I have finished with it.
HOW much does a pint of milk cost?
I think it’s about 65p now, but I normally buy two pints.
WHO would play you in a biopic of your life?
I’d like to think Ryan Phillippe, but that might be a bit of a stretch.
ANYONE famous ever slid into your DMs?
Quite a few times. My favourite one was James Corden, who sent me a very nice message about an interview.
I am so excited about Gavin & Stacey coming back.
CELEBRITY crush?
Ryan Phillippe or Ben Affleck.
WHEN did you last load the dishwasher?
I always load the dishwasher and was lecturing Joe this weekend about his inability to load a dishwasher.
- One Boy, Two Bills And A Fry Up: A Memoir Of Growing Up And Getting On, by Wes Streeting, is out in paperback (Hodder & Stoughton, £10.99).