Wes Streeting might have ended up in prison rather than in parliament. His maternal grandfather Bill, an unsuccessful armed robber, spent time behind bars, as did his grandmother, who was also a political campaigner.

Brought up on a Stepney council estate, the young Streeting saw his teenage parents struggle to provide for him. In One Boy, Two Bills & A Fry Up he brings to life the poverty, humiliation and incredible struggle for them choosing whether to feed the meter and heat the flat, put carpet on the floor, or food on the table.

Wes Streeting knows it was the help and inspiration he received from the great characters that surrounded him, especially his paternal grandfather (also called Bill), that ultimately set him on the way to Cambridge and then Parliament. He knew he could draw on the strengths in childhood to eventually come out, and to go on and face his now successful struggle with kidney cancer.

This honest, uplifting, affectionate memoir is a tribute to the love and support which set him on his way out of poverty, and informs everything about Wes Streeting’s mission now in politics.

My Review

I never read non-fiction other than in exceptional circumstances. And the last time I read an autobiography / biography / memoir was probably The Moon’s A Balloon about David Niven in 1971. I even had to add new categories and tags to this post.

But Wes Streeting’s remarkable autobiography was chosen as my book club read. I was very worried that it would be a slog but how wrong I was. My husband commented that he’d rather watch paint dry, but I told him it was actually really interesting and I was enjoying it enormously. I became a fan very quickly.

I have to confess that I preferred the first part when he is living in the East End of London fisrtly with his mum and then his dad, regaling us with tales of his maternal granddad being a bank robber and his nan being in prison with Christine Keeler. In fact his grandparents are probably the most interesting characters in the book.

It dipped a bit for me after he graduated from Cambridge University with his various jobs, the NUS and the Council, but then picked up again when he moved into politics proper as a Labour MP, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So before you say you are not interested, that he’s just another of those politicians who don’t care or don’t understand how working class people live, think again. This isn’t just a memoir. It’s a social commentary and might just open your eyes.

About the Author

Wesley Paul William Streeting, born 21 January 1983, is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 2024. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford North since 2015.

Brought up in Stepney, Streeting attended Westminster City School. He read history at the University of Cambridge and was president of the Cambridge Students’ Union from 2004 to 2005. He was president of the National Union of Students (NUS) from 2008 to 2010. Streeting also worked for Progress, a Labour Party-related organisation, for a year before working in the public sector. In 2010 he was elected to Redbridge London Borough Council for Labour and became deputy leader of the council in May 2014. Streeting was elected to the House of Commons as MP for Ilford North at the 2015 general election and resigned as the council’s deputy leader before standing down as a councillor in 2018. He was returned to Parliament at both the 2017 and 2019 general elections.