Wes Streeting: Biography and Political Career

Wes Streeting grew up on a council estate in Stepney, east London, the child of working-class teenage parents. His maternal grandparents were imprisoned for armed robbery; his grandfather serving time with the Kray twins. Streeting’s paternal grandfather, a navy veteran, was an influential figure throughout his upbringing. “He was the grandad I was closest to,” Streeting told the Financial Times in 2022. “He was a traditional working-class Tory.” In the same interview, he recalled Conservative politicians in the 1990s, such as Ann Widdecombe, “denigrating single-parent families like mine, which I took quite personally”. He attended Westminster City school where, in 1997, as a 14-year-old, he stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate in the mock election. From his student days, Streeting displayed a keen desire for organisational leadership. He joined the Labour party as soon as he could, at the age of 15. While studying history at the University of Cambridge, Streeting was elected president of the student union. During this time, he came out as gay, something he said he struggled to reconcile with his Anglican Christian faith. He was later elected as the president of the National Union of Students, reported by the Guardian at the time as “a move that will lend weight to the fight to modernise the union”. Streeting’s political career began when he was elected as a councillor for the Chadwell ward on Redbridge London borough council in 2010, becoming deputy leader of the council when Labour took control of Redbridge in 2014. He arrived in Westminster when he was elected as the MP for Ilford North in the 2015 general election. He campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU and supported a people’s vote on the final Brexit deal. In May 2021, Streeting revealed he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer at the age of 38. He took a step back from politics to receive treatment to remove the kidney. The operation was successful, and he returned to Westminster in July. His memoir, One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up, was published in June 2023. Rachel Cooke, of the Observer, described it as “both a little bit boring and unexpectedly fascinating”. At the 2024 general election, Streeting narrowly held on to his Ilford North constituency, after a challenge from a pro-Gaza independent candidate. As health secretary, Streeting has granted pay rises for resident doctors in an attempt to end strike action, but has had a thorny relationship with the British Medical Association, which represents doctors and which he has accused of behaving like a “cartel”. While his ambition to transform the NHS has characterised his frontbench career, his leanings towards the privatisation of the sector has drawn criticism from the Labour left.