A remarkable and enchanting book: Lord Black reviews 'One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up'

Wes Streeting | Image by: Jeff Gilbert / Alamy

Lord Black

I hope Wes Streeting forgives me. A paeon of praise from a Tory (even one as unashamedly liberal as me) for this remarkable autobiography – and its empathetic author – may not enhance his stellar career in the Labour ranks. I’m going to go for it anyway, because this enchanting autobiography deserves unstinting praise for its candour, humour and energy. 

It works at many levels. Part is like a gripping TV drama, introducing extraordinary new characters in each episode as part of a life of “constant upheaval” across the East End: Grandad Pops, the “fast getaway driver”; Nanny Libby as adept at doling out “rough justice” as campaigning for social justice; Nanny Knott who housed a menagerie of exotic animals; and Grandad Streeting, the Tory-voting patriot who instilled in his grandson his “strong Christian faith” and love of reading. They and Wes’s mum and dad – despite living in often grinding poverty, exacerbated by domestic violence, single parenthood and the problems of social housing – showered affection on young Wes. “However short of money we were, the one thing I was never short of was love.” That shines through.

This is no plastic politician but a real person

On another level we discover a great deal about the man himself. Named after Wesley Jordache, a character in the 1970s miniseries Rich Man Poor Man, he is a massive Trekkie (good for him). He plays the cello (“how many kids from Stepney could say that?”) and loved appearing in school drama (helping form his steely commitment to music and the arts, and an understanding of how they shape young minds). 

Woven through the book is his preparation for politics. He imbibed the values of social justice from Nanny Libby as she battled development in Docklands. At Westminster City school, he learned the value of a “cutting one-liner” – a useful skill on the front bench – to deflect remorseless bullying. He cut his teeth organising a successful petition to save a beloved teacher from redundancy – “it felt good to help people, to band together for a common cause”. These were all skills he put to work in student politics, Redbridge Council and now in Parliament.

In the most poignant sections, we learn about his journey to coming out. From his schoolboy crush on Michael Owen (who can blame him?) to his relationship with Joe (“tall, dark, handsome and political”), through years of bullying, the “exhaustion” of self-denial, difficulties in reconciling his sexuality with Christian faith (“I was afraid I was going to hell”), finally talking to his family, this is a story with which many gay men and women will empathise. This is no plastic politician but a real person. 

I await Volume 2. The story may be even more remarkable. If we Tories broke two glass ceilings – with two women prime ministers (history won’t count the other one) and the first British Asian PM – I suspect Streeting will, if this compelling book is anything to go by, be the one to break the third: the first gay holder of the keys to No. 10.

Lord Black of Brentwood is a Conservative peer

One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up: A Memoir of Growing Up and Getting On
By: Wes Streeting
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

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