Wes Streeting’s hyperlinks to legal underworld and Krays laid naked as he quits cupboard
Wannabe prime minister Wes Streeting is gearing up for a fight with Sir Keir Starmer over the Labour leadership. Streeting sensationally quit as Health Secretary today as the Labour Party descends into open warfare.
And the Ilford North MP, 43, is well-equipped for a battle having been brought up in poverty in east London. It is there where he had his first brushes with politics as a young Wes, the son of teenage parents, was close to his grandfathers, both named Bill.
But while his paternal grandfather was interested in politics – Streeting describes him as a “traditional working-class Tory” – his maternal grandfather was an armed robber who did time in prison and knew the notorious East End gangsters the Kray twins.
Streeting has often spoken how his working class upbringing and the different sides of his family shaped his political views. But while his paternal grandfather served in the Royal Navy during World War 2, the other Bill led a rather different existence.
Bill, full name William Crowley, was a career criminal, who was in and out of prison for most of his life. In his memoirs, Streeting says Bill used to wear an ugly rubber mask with long grey hair and a giant nose, which he called Claude, during his armed robberies.
And his grandmother Elizabeth Crowley, known as Libby, also served jail time and shared a cell with Christine Keeler, the teenage model whose sexual relationship with married MP John Profumo brought down a Tory government.
They became such good friends that Keeler visited Libby on her deathbed to say her final goodbyes. Bill and Libby would later do more jail time and Streeting’s mum Corrina was born in prison.
With Bill still behind bars, Keeler recalled in her memoir how she helped Libby ‘get back on her feet’ in London. The Crowleys would have two more children. But Bill would not change his ways.
Streeting, who was born in 1983, remembers visiting his grandfather in jail while at primary school. He once said of his family’s criminal history: “The tragedy is that my grandfather was a smart man who could have achieved so much.
“‘Instead, he led a life of crime and his actions impacted on our whole family. My nan’s criminal record blighted her life and he was in and out of prison during my mum’s childhood. After he left prison for the final time, he was frankly too old and unwell to change.”
Corrina and her brother ended up in care and she left school with no qualifications, Streeting recalled. She gave birth to Streeting aged 18. The father was her 17-year-old boyfriend and their relationship did not survive long.
Meanwhile, Libby moved to Wapping and another stage in her life began as a radical campaigner for social justice and Streeting once described her as “much further to the left of me.”
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