To be honest I was repelled by this book before reading a page. I assumed he was presumptuous.¹ I believed he was careerist student politician who’d got lucky.

Wrong!

Streeting is fascinating. He comes from a working-class background. (Most Labour politicians rely on working-class grandads to soften their bourgeois upbringing.) He experienced brutal poverty and appalling living conditions. His early life was dominated by insecurity mitigated by a strong family network.

School was very important with – named – dedicated teachers who nurtured him. The ‘getting on’ in the title began in primary and secondary school. Notwithstanding his constant changes in his housing and sometimes the gruelling journeys to school – Epping to central London in one period. He continued to be a hard-working student. Cambridge followed providing entry into university and national student politics.

The NUS was a power base for a very adept politician who transitioned into local politics and then the big stage in 2015.

Try this:

“…things can only get better. But experience and the evidence tell us otherwise, and I am afraid that the chances for children from backgrounds like mine are worsening….I thought that I had it bad. In many respects, I did, but the tragedy is that things are worse now than they were in the 1980s.” pp302-3, p305

 Note

1 Wayne Rooney’s 2006 autobiography is a classic ‘cut and paste’ autobiography. He was 20 when he(?) wrote it Wayne Rooney: My Story So Far: Amazon.co.uk: Rooney, Wayne: 9780007236282: Books