Off Air... with Jane and Fi - The fun bus of feminism (with Wes Streeting)

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Jane and Fi are reunited after a week apart, and to celebrate, the podcast is being filmed. They're discussing Jane's decolletage, if anyone has ever been to Madame Tussaud's twice, and a new feature is born: Focus on Hitchin. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting is today's guest, who talks about the conflict he felt between his faith and his sexuality as a young man, and being frequently asked whether he's in the running for Number 10.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @JaneandFiAssistant Producer: Elizabeth HighfieldTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Well, welcome to Off Air.

We're completely relaxed in this new setting. Oh, weren't you here last week? No. No, okay. No, we were still doing radio. Although, ironically, because I was co-hosting with a seasoned television professional, we could have been here. Should have done it with her last week. So when you're not here, do you ever listen? What? To you?

To the podcast. No. No, okay. Why, what did I miss? Well, Louise was a lovely, lovely co-host. Oh no, because she's great. Yes, yes. No, it wasn't Louise that put me on.

Was it me? Well, no, in all honesty, if I'm not at work, it's like if you work in a post office, you wouldn't go in for stamps every day the week you were off. I never listen when it's you there. But anyway, Louise Minch was being you last week, and we did have quite a laugh because we're all very different women yeah and i don't start going like that i've gone all defensive you have you crossed your arms

in a very very defensive way well so louise does all of that endurance sport and stuff like that and so we had lots of chats about fear and you know and so she's got a book out at the moment called fearless which is lots of women doing what i think is just really extraordinarily daft things like caving and potholing to conquer their fears but there's just keep the fears yeah there's a very nice email from shan uh can i read it yes go on i feel that i need to ask permission now we're in vision for everything no you don't have to ask my permission. But hang on, Louise's case is that extreme risk-taking, or rather confronting your fears, is the right thing to do.

Yes, so it's the feel the fear and do it anyway kind of thing, which I think I believed in as a younger woman, but it doesn't work for me now. So Sian is of a very similar disposition. Just to say that I miss Jane, obviously, but wasn't Louise brilliant, loved her. Although as positions on life go, I'm definitely a feet in the silt of the riverbed with fee kind of girl. So I was trying to explain that my resilience comes from my feet being so stuck on the ground and in the river belt, river bed, Mae fy nghyd-dynion yn dod o fy nghefn yn bod yn mor wedi'i gwneud yn y llawr ac yn y llawr y byddai'n cael ei ddynu yn y llawr. Y llawr a'r llawr.

Ie. Cofod yn llawr a'r llawr. Felly mae hynny'n gweithio i mi. Iawn. Ie. A mae Sean yn dweud, diolch am unrhyw unrhyw un sy'n cymryd y bywyd i'r bywyd fel y gall pobl gael eu teimlo hefyd. Y cyfan Yolo, sy'n... Y.

Os yw y gofod o ffyrdd Yolo yn... Beth yw Yolo? Rydych chi'n byw unwaith. Rydych chi'n byw unwaith. Diolch Rosie. If FOMO's fear of missing out YOLO is... What's YOLO? You only live once. You only live once. Thank you, Rosie. And I say thank goodness for that. Carpe diem.

You haven't lived today if you haven't done something you're afraid of. It's so bloody exhausting. Especially if you have a full-time job and kids and a mortgage about to expire and a slightly leaky pelvic floor, to which the main point of my email. So we talked a lot about this too. a llawr pelwedd sy'n ychydig yn llawr, i'r pwynt bwysig o fy e-bail. Felly, fe siaradwyd am hynny ychydig. Rwyf wedi cael anodd am flynyddoedd ers i mi ddatblygu fy dau plant, sy'n nawr ym mis 7 a 4. Roedd gen i ffisio pelwedd yn ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ywl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddwl meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol meddol medd that because I think Sian you've recognized that for some doctors it can be unbearably uncomfortable to talk about stress incontinence with women and especially if you're a very young doctor and

perhaps you know you've only learned about it from textbooks so you don't understand you know quite how bad the problem is and it's embarrassing as an old woman to have to explain it I mean there's always a first time isn't there there just has just has to be, necessarily, for everybody. Yeah. So I do feel, yeah, extreme sympathy for the junior doctor and for Sian, I should say. But Sian goes on to say that she went to another really good specialist who gave her a range of different exercises. My favourite is stomping to train and tone the reaction of my pelvic floor muscles. She has me stomping my feet around the house. I have to tell you, it's really liberating. Stomping makes me channel my inner teenager

and it feels particularly cleansing after a day of navigating children's arguments, husband's irritation, cycling kit, and managing, I'm with you on that, managing challenging work situations. To be honest, I would prescribe stomping to any woman in her 40s regardless of the strength of her pelvic floor. Right.

And she's delighted that you're back. Maybe your listeners could try a bit of stomping as they eat their pumpkin seeds and cranberries. It can really help. Well, have you seen this email about pelvic floor and singing? Yeah, you do that one. Okay, well, it's from Sarah, who says, I'm a singer and a singing teacher. That's probably the significant thing, she says says who really believes in whole body singing you may like to know that using your pelvic and abdominal muscles correctly really

supports your singing and takes attention and pressure away from the throat the shoulders and the jaw it's made a huge difference to me in every walk of life I really recommend singing so sarah so whole body singing throwing your whole self at it do you ever do that um i do have the yeah only in the not whole body singing but i do sing quite a lot i think sometimes i sing out of nerves i know that my sister is consistently irritated by my low level humming humming in family-type situations. And yes, I know you have commented before on that. I think I make these noises, yeah.

You do? Yeah, OK. So sometimes, even here in the office, and I don't think that's because you're nervous. I think actually when your head's a bit bored, you start humming. I start humming, do I? OK. So keep busy, lady. Keep busy. busy Anne says I'm currently on a cruise to Iceland and Greenland and today at around 3 p.m we cross the arctic circle after this point

I did a mile walk around the promenade deck with my headphones on and a downloaded episode of the podcast the one with Karen Slaughter playing in my ears. I was just wondering if I qualify as your most northerly listener. Well, yeah, you must do. If you cross the Arctic Circle. Where's she heading for? For Iceland and Greenland. I would have thought so. Maybe someone can beat that.

And Anne says, I enjoyed the interview with Karen and have added her to my ever-growing list of authors to try. I think I'm going to run out of time to read Fresh Water for Flowers before it's discussed on the programme, but I hope I'm going to run out of time to read Fresh Water for Flowers before it's discussed on the programme, but I hope I can join in with the next title. Now, Fresh Water for Flowers is our book club book. Yes, it is. It's quite a whopper. I think it's well over 400 pages, isn't it? It's a bit of a chunk. Yes, it is. It's quite a physically small book, though, so don't be too put off. I mean, it's long ish but it's not a big

book in its paperback form yes it's in yeah it's the small version yeah it's like a pocket side book and i think you've got to get a hundred and definitely a hundred pages into it to really fall in love with it because i wasn't sure about it at the start and you're not sure about it no no i'm not there it's partly because i'm also reading something else at the same time you're not sure about this. I'm not there yet. No. I'm not there. It's partly because I'm also reading something else at the same time, which is a book I do recommend because I've got properly into it. I can't recommend another book.

Not until we've got this one out because otherwise we're going to get stacked up, aren't we? You're terrifically stern. I tell you what, Alan's very angry and he's currently in Kazakhstan. The two things might be related. Let me just read it because Alan needs his moment. Good afternoon, Jane and Fi.

Your show is replete with hypocritical anti-male propaganda. Is this your effort to redress the balance of generations of bias in life against women? Yeah, partly. Do you realise that you collectively verge on misandry? Alan is very keen to point out that he is neither misogynistic, Fi, or ch chauvinistic or in any way anti-women. And he illustrates this point by telling us that he enjoys listening to Aisha Hazarika, Kathy Newman, Ruth Davidson and Charlotte Ivers et al.

Just tone down your rhetoric and, oh, it gets better, use your considerable talents to explore the topics of the day in a more balanced fashion. Well, that's told us. That's told us both thank you alan actually in all seriousness alan tell us why you're in kazakhstan um because i i would love to know um what's going on there what you're doing there and just what it's like i haven't got a clue about any of the stands have you i've never been to any of the stands no exactly so yes alan be part of us yeah join our family and also what i would say about the misandry thing uh is that for every time you hear something alan where you think oh they're having a bit of a go about men i suppose this might be the first time that you've listened to a radio program presented by two women so you might be

hearing something that's often said but just not often said within your earshot in the same way that I think you and I've got very used to over the years hearing men talking to men within our earshot absolutely is that a nice way of putting it uh yeah i think you alan have you got the message no so it's not yeah no you're right it's just that for years men talked at us not just on the radio but in almost every other aspect of our lives as well yeah so this might be a little bit of the pendulum yeah just ever so gently going in the other direction but it's only for a couple of hours and don't think that we don't think that we, don't think that we hate men. Because we really, we really don't actually.

We hate the twits. We hate the prats. Yeah, but not the others. No, I mean, I'm going to be smothering my décolletage in Kate Moss's Cosmos. What was it again?

The product we were trying on with Josh Arnold tonight. I think it is, is it Cosmos or Kate Moss? Cosmos. Cosmos. But it's the mythic tears of a Greek legend.

Of Kyrios. That's right. Yes. Is that Nick Kyrios? So none of this makes any sense at all if you weren't with the feature. But are you smothering yourself in that in the hope of literally a man sticking to you on the way home? I'm hoping to attract a mate on the Northern Line. What are the chances?

What are the chances? Well, I think unfortunately they're quite high, but I would be worried about the quality of the catch. But you keep us posted. Were you talking about yellow cars last week? Yes, we were, because Fiat have introduced a no grey car policy because they just want to be more fun. No grey car? No grey cars, no.

Well, Jo, who's in Poundbury. Now, Poundbury, is that... Is it the one that King Charles built? That's right. It's his, like a model village. Yes, with real people. With real people. It's not like that place out on the M40

that everybody goes to once. The little miniature one. The little toy town. He went there once, it was so dirty. Because it had really, really big litter in a tiny, tiny town. So someone threw their dead magnum wrapper in the whole town square. It looked enormous. That's a very real danger with model villages, isn't it?

Beck and Scott, that's the name, isn't it? Thank you, yes. There's one at Southport as well. Well, there certainly used to be. They're a weird kind of attraction. They're so strange. All those tiny little... But then I think they're exactly the same category as Madame Tussauds.

Why you would want to go and see lots of people basically encased forever as candles, I just don't know. Well, say what you like about Madame Tussauds, there's a queue outside there, whatever the weather. There really is. Well, there is. You're absolutely right. But I wonder how many of those are repeat visitors. Who can say? If you've been more than once to Madame Tussauds, that's another subject we can discuss. Jane and Fee at

Times.Radio. Jo is in Poundbury and she says, we used to have a gorgeous yellow 2CV. It attracted flies like nothing on earth. Squished all over the bonnet. I agree with Fee. I call that colour undercoat grey. It's just boring. Thank you, Jo. This one from Lucy, just catching up on my off-air backlog and your chat about school trips reminded me of when I, aged 14, went on a day trip to Boulogne

from, now you can say this, I can't, Heckmondwyke. Heckman Dwike. Heckman Dwike. I think. In West Yorkshire. We set off at about 3am. We had time to wander for an hour or so before practising ordering a croissant and then heading home. I don't remember anything about it other than the fact that I had recorded

a special cassette to keep me company on the journey. What was it? I Am The One And Only by Chesney Hawks. Good song though. Back to back on both sides. It was 1991. So she only had Chesney Hawks.

I Am the One and Only, all the way from West Yorkshire to Boulogne and back. I do like that song. I wonder whether you'd like it after that. You probably wouldn't. Now, we were contacted before Glastonbury by a listener who was going for the first time uh and she's been back in touch it obviously took her a week to process what she went through at glastonbury and she's now made contact again um it is caroline um you wanted to know how two ladies in their 60s got on with our first glastonbury we had an

incredible time despite the piercing sun that gave us a tan to last the rest of the year. The Glastow vibe was really so positive it needs to be taken out into the world. I heard many Liverpudlian voices. Well you would you see at a place that absolutely buzzes with positivity. You're always going to find a Scouser. There were many many happy stories to tell but I'll just relay a couple to avoid the Glastow gloat. Well actually she's only really got one Roedd yna lawer o straeon hapus i'w ddweud, ond byddaf yn cymryd ychydig i ddewis i fwyaf o'r glasdwg. Wel, mae hi ddim yn cael un ond ychydig, a byddaf yn mynd i'w adrodd. Dechreuais gyda 5k o rannu ar y le. Roedd hyn yn fater o rannu ychydig o challengau, a chadw £250 i Maggie's, y cyllid cymorth ganlyniadau cancer.

Roeddent yn wych i mi pan oeddwn i'n cael cancer yn 2019. Roedd hyn yn unigol o brofiad at 6 o'r gwaith pan roedd y le yn eithaf yn ystyr. excellent to me when I had cancer in 2019. This alone was an incredible experience at six in the morning when the site was really quiet. I had a quick chuck a bucket of water over me shower, coffee and a croissant that eased us into the day and we were out, out, out. We enjoyed the hives, the lightning seeds, then we went on to the pyramid stage for Texas who was superb and the churn ups who of course ended up being the Foo Fighters. By this time, nine o'clock, we were done. Our tired feet took us back to base camp, about a mile away.

But as we all know, when camping, you adapt. So I opened up the case from the camping stove, poured a little boiled water and cold water on each side, added some shampoo, and voila, a foot spa. It was heaven. And Caroline has helpfully attached a lovely photograph of her foot spa. Wonderful. I hope the camera's got that.

It does sound amazing. And then they went out again. I can't believe this. She went to a rave at Arcadia. Caroline, it sounds to me like you got the Glastonbury bug very early on. Well, now you've started your festival journey. Well, we don't want to overhype this. Will you end up at Glastonbury next time around?

Which is meant to be an all-female line-up, isn't it? Yeah, well, all-female headliners. So Taylor, Rihanna, I think, as well. Taylor, yeah. And the Spice Girls. You heard it here, not first, but you've heard it here, that that is probably next year's Glasto headlining line-up. Yeah, will you go?

No. Okay. No, but I'll certainly whittle on about it, and I'll watch it on the telly. But we are going, I think we're all right to say we're going to Latitude. We are going to Latitude. Yeah. So we are festivaling ourselves up. It's my festival summer. In Suffolk. And we've had so many conversations haven't we about our accommodation

because that's where we are at in our mid-50s it's not you know how many acts should we stay for it's what kind of a mattress will be in the yurt and do i bring my special pillow well i mean seriously it's not traveling even for a night away from home... Away from the pillow is difficult. Big thing, isn't it? No, I know what you mean. I've asked if I can bring my dog, Nancy. And they've said no.

I'm not sure they even contacted the authorities about that. They just said no. It was sweet of you to think that they might. I'm here to tell you you're quite right, they didn't. Well... But they disappeared and then came back in the room and told you you couldn't take Nancy. I think they literally just went outside, counted to and then came back in the room and told you you couldn't take nancy i think they literally just went outside counted to 10 and

came back in but none of the performers or the artistes will be there because we're going before the because we're going before the festival yeah we're pre-festival talent we're pre-loading yeah we are early festival we're basically's prinks, aren't we? So I thought Nance might be a welcome distraction, but unfortunately not. But yes, we are coming from Latitude, so you're going to be a festival veteran by the end of the summer. Yeah, we'll be at Latitude with a small amount of attitude on the Thursday before it all starts.

Yes, and will you be bringing your own moist wet wipes and toilet roll? Because we had a long conversation about that this morning as well. I'll be taking everything sanitary that may in any way come in handy. Are you going to turn up with one of those proper camping flushable toilets? My own flushable facility. Yeah, it's quite possible. I don't know why you find that funny. You'll be the first person in the queue to use it. I don't know.

I don't want to. Right, before we go into West Streeting... Who's our big guest? Who is our big guest? Can I just add something to our new section? Do you know what our new section is called? No. Focus on Hitchin'.

Oh, God. A big guest. Right, why are we focusing on Hitchin'? Well, for a podcast... Where was Louise Minchin from? No, I don't think she's from Hitchin'. Minchin' from Hitchin'? No. I think she's... No, she a podcast... Where was Louise Minchin from? No, I don't think she's from Hitchin. Minchin from Hitchin.

No, I think she's... No, she's from... She went to school in Berkshire, didn't she? I don't know where she's originally from. But Hitchin, for a podcast that does actually have a global audience, we have focused on Hitchin quite a lot. It's a very small place in Hertfordshire. Yeah, I'm sure it's lovely. Not known, I don't think, for very much.

But it crops up a lot, so here we go. I heard Fee mention how often listeners write in from Hitchin, and I wanted to share my memories of Hitchin. This comes from Sophie. My God, this is even more obscure. Memories of Hitchin, right. I now understand it's a vibrant and really quite classy corner of Hertfordshire and a very desirable place to live.

But in the 1980s, when both my brother and I were students in London we used to travel home to St Ives Cambridgeshire via Huntington by train keep up the sectorization of British Rail was underway as part of this Huntington was downgraded from intercity to outer suburban oh was it what a terrible blow I think I remember that day actually we sometimes could get a fast train out of King's Cross, but more often we had to get a fast train as far as Hitchin. Right. Stop it. And wait on a cold platform for a trundler to transport us on to Huntingdon.

Apologies to the residents of Hitchin, but I'm afraid my brother and I developed a very negative attitude to it, having only seen the post-war platforms on winter evenings once he muttered the immortal line they call it hitching because when you get stuck there late at night that's exactly what you feel like doing during those heady days of the mid-80s John Major was MP for Huntingdon and some suggest that he advocated for a fast train to Huntingdon in 1983 he moved on to higher things and that sectorisation took over yeah so if you're a John Major Yn 1983, roedd yn ymwneud â'r hyn sydd wedi'i wneud i'r cyfan. Mae rhywbeth arall i bawb yma, onid? Ie.

Ac fe wnaeth y sectorio'r cyfan. Felly os ydych chi'n ddynol o'r cyfan, bydd yr e-bost hwnnw'n ddynol i chi. Roeddwn i wedi gwneud un o'r ffyrdd, a ydych chi'n cofio ffyrdd yn ôl yn y dydd o'r adroddiad y rhanbarth? Y ffyrdd y rhanbarth. Roedd yn rhaid i mi gael atleisio atleisiau o atleisiau o atal. o ran y cwmpaniadau. Ac fe wnes i ffantastig y ffyrdd o'r ffaith bod cwmni o Northampton wedi cael y contract, rwy'n credu bod hynny'n ei ddatblygu rhywbeth, i roi llwyth o ddiogelwch ar ôl ymchwil John Major ar ôl ei fod yn Prif Weinidog. Ac maen nhw wedi cael y contract? Maen nhw wedi cael y contract ac roedd y llwyth yn dda wyth ffwrdd uchel na'r llwyth gyntaf sydd wedi bod yno. Ac roeddwn i'n cael fy ngwmpas They won the contract and the fence was a good six foot higher than the previous fence that had been there.

And I was tasked with turning that into a three and a half to four minute feature. I only managed to turn in two and a half minutes and I got into trouble for it. And when the editor said, could you make this a bit longer? I had to say, God, that's nothing. The fence is higher, but I'm afraid... Just nothing else to say. Because quite often in those packages, you had to get one perspective

and then somebody to challenge it. People in the area were generally supportive of the slightly bigger fence. No one gave a shit. No one gave a shit. Okay, right. Well, there we are. Yesterday's news today in the company of Fee Club.

Great. I've never wanted to hear Wes Streeting more, I don't think. You're very nice. Well, no, I'm just, you know, come on. Bring back Minch. So Wes Streeting has got what I think is going to be volume one of his memoirs out. Realistically, how many volumes could you get out of your life, do you think? Out of my life? Yeah. Oh, blimey, about seven. Oh really? Oh yes I suppose so yeah. Oh no yeah

silly me yeah whereas I'm more of you know tenth of one volume I think. Anyway he has got quite a family story hasn't he? He does and the title of his book so in case people don't know who Wes Streeting is because we do have a global audience. He's the current Shadow Health Secretary. Yes, so he's in the opposition party. He's in the Labour Party. But I'm not giving much away, I don't think. What are you going to say? Well, there's the possibility that Labour win the next British general election. Are you reading some runes there, Jane? Mystic Jane is speaking. Yeah. Yeah. And we know what a track record she has. He's also the current MP for Ilford North, and he was born in East London to teenage parents.

So his mum was 18, I think his dad was either 18 or 19, and the two families could not have been more different. So on the one side, his grandparents were at times in prison. His mum was actually born in Whittington hospital because his mother was in jail at the time and was taken to the hospital to give birth and then on the other side on his father's side that family was very much Tory so he's got interesting lineage he's fast-tracked his way hasn he, to the shadow front bench and lots of people do tip him as being a future powerhouse within the Labour Party. So we had plenty to

talk about and we started with Wes explaining the title of his book which is One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry-Up. Well, One Boy, Two Bills and a fry-up. The one boy is obviously me. The two bills are my two grandfathers. Dad's side of the family, Bill Streeting, Royal Navy World War II veteran, civil engineer all his life. Very much a sort of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, work hard, play by the rules, serve king and country in the war loved queen and country throughout the rest of his life and a solid working class Tory the only time he voted anything else was liberal quote-unquote to keep Labour out in Tower Hamlets where he lived and then the very different Bill my mum's dad Bill Crowley in and out of prison throughout my mum's childhood throughout my childhood uh string of convictions for armed

robbery uh kind of east end crook really um originally from south london very loving grandfather nonetheless but led a very different life and then the fry up it's not just i love a fry up and it's not an east end affectation it's um I was an accident my mum and dad were very young when I was conceived 17 and 18 and my mum was under enormous pressure to have an abortion which initially to her made sense the appointment was booked but she decided not to go through with it and she knew that if she told anyone she would come under massive pressure to go to that hospital and go through the termination so she did what she was explicitly told she could not do which was eat before the appointment she cooked herself a full English breakfast like she would never normally do this and that was her

insurance policy to make sure she couldn't go through with it so it is literally the fry up to save my life so that's where the book starts which is a wonderful way to engage the reader. But also it just tells the reader so much about your mum, because actually that is a big, big decision for a teenage girl to take and to take on her own, even though she did have a very close family around her. She did, but the abortion was solving the problem and she was unsolving the problem and I remember when I turned 17 having a conversation with my dad saying it's only just dawned on me that when you were my age you were a father and that I cannot imagine how terrifying that must have been for him um so I don't judge my dad or anyone else in my family for thinking that you know my mum having a baby at that age was not a good idea and as I went through my late teens and 20s sort of my parents really did sacrifice a lot they were a young couple a poor couple a short-lived couple

can you tell us a little bit more about your mum? Because it's her side of the family, isn't it, that has the criminality that you have referred to? And actually for her mum, that was a terrible start. sort of found it hard to write about my nan and the life she led before I was born because it's almost like a different person because she had ended up in prison herself for getting involved in my granddad's criminal activities and my nan was carrying my mum in prison so my mum wasn't literally born in prison she was born up the road in in Holloway in Whittington she was in Holloway prison shut the road Whittington hospital so she gave birth to my mum in hospital chained to the bed with prison officers surrounding her and what that wasn't the only consequence of my granddad's criminality their relationship was pretty toxic

pretty violent and my mum grew up around that violence and it had a big impact on her childhood how did the two families get on, having been brought together by the arrival of you? Because what is so clear from the book was, it's just this enormous village of love that you were brought up in. But that doesn't mean that, I mean, did the bills get on? The bills didn't spend a great deal of time together. My granddad's treating was almost like a great deal of time together my my granddad

streeting was almost like a surrogate father to my mum and they had that close bond um the families did get on always and um you know the reason my mum and dad met was um through my aunt and there's that sort of network of friendship and um but they were they're very the streetings and the crowleys are in some ways stereotypically stem families but very different stereotypically stem families i mean you know um bill streeting my granddad on my dad's side very representative of the streeting family a kind of started off as a very nuclear east end family all lived on the same street um all had that same work ethic going out work hard play by the rules a family that's largely conservative voters um my mum's side of the family um i mean i wouldn't say that bill crowley is representative of everyone else because uh fortunately we don't

have loads of criminal records on on that side of the family but um a very different family in terms of politics um outlook um and there was a lot of you know ducking and diving and bobbing and weaving and you know didn't have a lot of money and food to go around so it was a case of oh look this has just fallen off the back of a van or you know my granddad would bring home his spoils of his criminal endeavours. So it was a very different kind of environment. My mum and dad's childhoods were very, very different. When granddad pops my mum's dad, whenever he was doing a legitimate line of work, he still found the way to basically come into some nice goods.

So there was, I think, point where every um doormat across that bit of the east end had this lovely buffalo kind of doormat that you know because he happened to be working for the company and doing some shipping for them so some of the mats came his way and he was he was a very he was very generous with other people's belongings of doormats yeah and tell me a little bit though about the poverty because uh you know it would be easy to kind of romanticize that but but for you as a small boy it was so real yeah and really unpleasant at one point you described going back to the flat where your mum had been living and there was such an infestation of fleas when you walked in it actually looked like you had socks on black socks um so many

i remember alan johnson who's one of my labor heroes uh once saying you know i didn't grow up in poverty to give the labor party a good backstory you know i this is not a misery memoir and um i had a happy childhood but there were moments of real hardship. And as I got older, I was becoming more and more acutely aware that we were different, even relative to the standards of the East End at the time. You know, me and my mum laugh about it now, but it wasn't funny at the time. It was pretty scary. So now when you're sitting in a room where people are talking about how to solve the issues of poverty and you know that you're not with people who have had that experience of it what do you say to them and how do you need to convey to them what the reality is or do you not need to have lived it to be able to be empathetic and understand it you don't need to

have lived it to be empathetic and to understand. But what I do see in so much in politics is the lack of lived experience in the room leads to really bad decisions. You know, I look at Rishi Sunak and the Conservative cabinet, and it's not that I think Rishi goes into work saying, how can I plunge more kids into poverty today? But because he doesn't understand the sorts of struggles that family goes through, he doesn't understand what £20 a week lost in universal credit would mean for those families. And when I hear some Conservative MPs saying, oh, it's just about making better choices, I just think, like, what planet are you living on? And we can always try and pick out the stereotypes of the layabouts, the scroungers, the spongers. stereotypes of the lays the layabouts to scroungers to sponges and as with all stereotypes there will always be people who take the mick try and fiddle the system some examples of that in my

book actually um but that's not representative and actually what i see a lot of in my own constituency today are people quite the opposite slogging their guts out in three jobs or more and not making ends meet and the the tragic irony for me today as a constituency MP is there are kids growing up in the same poverty that I experienced growing up but the council house that I was desperate to escape from is something they now aspire to because they are in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation they are being shoved from pillar to post and what opportunities are there then for the sorts of interventions that made the difference in my life and meant I ended up in parliament rather than prison you know I had a great state education with amazing teachers well how do teachers build those relationships if the kids are moving from school to school and And I think on so many levels, things are worse now than they were in the 1980s.

And it breaks my heart. And that's, I just think there aren't enough people in the cabinet who understand that. Just while we're on the topic of experience, were you to form the next government, how would you acknowledge that there are very few people in that shadow cabinet with real experience of government and taking the hard decisions? And have you undergone some kind of training in order to fill that gap? We're not in a too dissimilar situation to where the Blair team were pre-1997. 1997. I mean, we're fortunate in that in Kier, we've got someone who came into politics late and has run a big public service. And that's why I think sometimes he lets the veil down a bit and

shows, actually, I think a bit of disdain that he has for the way our political system operates and his lack of patience. We've got some brilliant people in the shadow cabinet like Pat McFadden who have been there in government and driving things right from the heart of government and for the rest of us I think certainly in my own case I am blessed with a very wide-ranging cast of former health secretaries and health ministers in the last Labour government and people who've worked at senior levels of the Department of Health and the NHS over those years, who have been so generous with me in terms of their time, their expertise. In my team, I've got people like Liz Kendall, who's been a special advisor in the Department of Health, Gillian Merrin, who was a minister.

So do you want to one day lead the country? Is this a very eloquent 311 page job application no it's not and i must have are you sure sort of a time i'm at a point now with sort of like would you like to be the leader of the labour party questions where i like i just would it's so tedious now because i think that would it matter if you did what if i want if if you said yes one day i'd love to um i'll tell you why like i've now become a bit fed up with the question is when i answer honestly and like part of this book is about saying to working class kids from backgrounds like mine the sky's the limit reach for the stars don't let anyone hold you back so i'm never going to be um sort of apologetic or ashamed about having ambition but what really annoys me is that you know when I

answer these questions directly and honestly as I always try to do with questions it then's like the other week there were a whole load of headlines you know where streeting reveals ambition to be prime minister which I've got so much ribbing from my friends saying oh and this counts as news does it the truth is I have a leadership role in the Labour Party. And if Labour wins the next general election, being the Secretary of State for Health with responsibility of taking the NHS from its worst crisis in its history to making it fit for the future is a huge challenge.

And if the only thing I ever achieve in my life is doing that one thing, then I will consider my time in politics and public life very well spent. I will die a very happy man. to open breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11 and get on with your day accessibility there's more to iPhone you're listening to Off Air where our guest this afternoon was Wes Streeting Wes also details in his memoir his experience of trying to balance his understanding of his sexuality with his faith and he writes about his fear of god and the fact that a friend of his carried with him a letter written by his priest that told him it was okay to be gay yeah this was my this was my

first um my first ever boyfriend you know and i shared how I felt and why I had been in the closet for so long. And he shared with me a letter that had been sent to him, which really moved me and reassured me. I still wasn't reconciled to that. I still hadn't reconciled that inner conflict between faith and sexuality. between faith and sexuality. And actually, it has taken me years since then to get to a place where I am now, where I think there is no contradiction. And it's been a long journey because it sort of started off with me thinking,

I tried desperately hard not to be gay. I'm pretty confident in saying that being gay is not a choice. People say, you know, the old nature and nurture debate we used to have all i can tell you is that i not only did i not choose to be gay i chose for many years not to be gay and it was painful and harmful when i see other people who've suffered in that way and um you know do i think jesus would be on a gay pride march? Would he be marching at London Pride?

I don't know if he'd be marching, but I tell you what, he would be absolutely taking on the people who shout fire and brimstone from the sidelines. Because the thing that saddens me about the way people feel about those of us in public life who are religious, not just Christian, but across the board, there are a lot of people in public life who are religious not just christian but across the board there are a lot of people out there who aren't religious who look at religious legislators and fear fear us they fear that we're going to vote against a woman's right to choose or fear

that we're going to vote against lgbt equality and i'm very proudly in favor of women's right to choose i obviously vote in favor of lgbt equality i'm one of the minority of mps in parliament who's voted support assisted dying um i don't feel any contradiction between those positions and my faith and in fact i think the fundamental message of my faith and actually representing a very religious constituency a wide range of faiths these are messages of love inclusion social action. But while the Church of England would still deny you the opportunity to marry in church, you wouldn't possibly understand that.

Yeah, I think that's why, you know, to disagree with Alistair Campbell on Com's advice, which is a bold move, I do do God. And Alistair Campbell famously said to blair you know you know or about that we know we don't do god um and uh you know i think it is important to speak up and show moral ethical leadership um i i understand actually the archbishop of canterbury's really difficult role he has to play between holding together the Church of England and the global Anglican communion. And I don't envy him in that task. And when politicians attack the Church of England for speaking, and my favourite is when politicians say, oh, it's typical Archbishop of Canterbury virtue signalling.

is one person in this country whose job it is to literally signal virtue it is the Archbishop of Canterbury and I'm I'm proud of the moral leadership the church thinking shows even if I'm not entirely comfortable with the teaching on equal marriage I take your point about virtue signaling it's a clever way to put it uh can I just ask you about Stonewall because yeah my book for Stonewall yeah so there has been some controversy about their advocacy within corporations of gender rights, of trans rights, and quite a few companies who had employed them to give Steve Barclay, the BBC. If you were still at Stonewall, what would you make of that reversal by those companies? And do you think that Stonewall has got it a little bit wrong? I think this neatly follows on from our last discussion, actually.

When I worked at Stonewall, equal marriage was going through Parliament. And I actually worked in the education team leading our campaigning around tackling homophobic bullying in schools. So I wasn't directly involved in it, but I had a ringside seat and I kind of watched as Ben Summerskill, one of the most effective lobbyists I've ever seen, did the hard graft of not just marshalling votes in the commons on the lords amongst the people who were already on side all the quiet cups of teas the conversations with people some cases were directly opposed and in other cases were unsure skeptical or anxious particularly in terms of religious freedom you know would we be compelling churches and mosques and synagogues to perform equal marriages? Would we be suing priests who don't marry same-sex couples? All of those sorts of issues.

And there was a, you know, a fear of a conflict between the rights of same-sex couples to get married and the rights of religious communities who believe marriage is between a man and a woman to practice their faith without state interference. And what Stonewall did was bring those people around the table and work effectively with the government, which also had to compromise because David Cameron had a majority of his own MPs against him, so he needed cross-party support. And compromise was found that maybe not everyone loved but everyone could live with and i've tried to take the same approach on trans rights and the challenges

we have around with for people who have issues with their gender identity who just want to be accepted included and to be able to live their lives free from discrimination and prejudice. Lots of feminist groups, not all, but lots of feminist groups who say, hang on a minute, there's a conflict here in terms of sex-based rights of women, women-only spaces, and those moments and those spaces and those times where it might not be appropriate to have women's spaces that include trans women and these are tricky thorny sensitive issues that need to be managed in a far more thoughtful and sensitive way than i think we've seen with the raging culture wars some of the really ugly clumsy language and the cesspit of social media where i just see kind of battle lines being drawn all the time including

among people I respect within my own party on the left of politics but also this applies in the Conservative Party and across the spectrum and so what I would like to see is a sort of resurrection of that approach we saw in equal marriage, which is bringing people together, creating the space where people can air their concerns without fear or prejudice. There are a lot of kids and young people out there in particular who are questioning their identity, who are afraid and who are picking up the papers or turning on the telly and feeling afraid of politics

and political rhetoric. And other groups sometimes make that worse by encouraging such a hyper individualism and self-identification in a world that might need to ask exactly as you're saying everybody to compromise a bit and also a world that will need legislation at some point so you can't just well yeah so onto the onto the sort of where i think there's some um you know there's plenty of criticism to go around on this one you know look at what happened with the gender recognition legislation in scotland it is a really good example of why as legislators you can't only legislate with good intentions

you do have to legislate with some worst case scenarios in mind. And there were lots of women out there who felt silenced and gaslit when they raised concerns about prisoners, for example, who then we had this case of a man who, as far as I'm concerned, was blatantly abusing or seeking to abuse loopholes in the law, having perpetrated violence against women, basically saying like, well, you know, I may be a male sexual predator, but I'm defining as a woman now. And that's why we've got to make sure there are safeguards in law and protections. And, you know, in terms of self-reflection and criticism, you know, I don't mind admitting that if we'd talked about these issues a few years ago, I would have just gone, hang on a second.

Look, trans men and men, trans women, some people are trans, get over it. This is all kind of whipped up. You know, let's just all just calm down and get on with our lives. with our lives and actually it took me some time to be a bit less defensive to listen to friends who were raising concerns and have a bit of humility to say hang on a minute it's a bit more complicated than i've given credit for and i think and that goes that there's plenty of that to go around i you know i sort of see some of the language on social media um and like say you know the term turf for example now turf is used as a kind of term of abuse towards um towards feminist race and concerns and actually lots of those feminists have said okay I'm gonna

wear that as a badge of honor and what I see with that sort of language are people drawing battle lines and picking a side and I don't want to build battle lines. I want to build bridges. We're streeting. We're streeting there. Yes. We're streeting there. We're streeting. No, so seriously, you asked him the question about whether or not he wants to become prime minister.

Yes. It is a really tricky one, that, because you obviously can't say yes, very much so, because that implies that you're very keen to elbow out the current individual who's likely to become Prime Minister of Labour, win the election. But equally, if you say absolutely not, that hints at a lack of ambition. And it will come back to haunt him. And it will come back to haunt him, yes. If he stands, people say you're a hypocrite.

I interviewed a couple of years ago Kemi Badenoch, who is thought of quite frequently now as a future Tory Prime Minister. I mean, this is going to be in quite some years' time, I would imagine. wedi'i feddwl o'n fawr nawr fel Prif Weinidog Taurig y dyfodol. Mae'n mynd i fod yn rhan o'r amser ychydig o flynyddoedd, fe wnaeth hi'n ei ddewis yn categoriaidd. Doedd hi ddim yn meddwl o beth oedd yn gwaethaf i'w ddewis yn y Prif Weinidog. Felly rwy'n gobeithio iawn pan fydd hi'n gweithio ar gyfer y Prif Weinidog, mae rhywun yn gallu gwneud y cwbl. Ond mae'n un anodd. Mae'n gwestiwn sydd ar gael i'w gofyn ac mae'n gwestiwn nad ydyn nhw'n gallu ei ateb. Ond rwy'n credu, dy dywedwch, roedd yn y tro cyntaf yn y cyfweliad roeddwn i'n gweld Wes Streeting yn gwneud ychydig o newid i'r...

dwi'n ddim yn hapus iawn i siarad am hynny, oherwydd mae'n gwbl yn gwleidyddol yn ymddygiadol. Mae'n gael popeth yn ei chyffyrdd, mae'n gwybod yn unigol. Dwi ddim yn meddwl y gall unrhyw gwestiynau... Maeu ei ddod arno. Mae'n gweithiwr yn fawr, ydy'r hyn? Ie, rwy'n credu ei fod yn ddysgu'n fawr, ac mae'n amlwg yn un o'i adradydau gwleidyddol gwych, ond fe wnaeth hi'n debygol cael ei gyhoeddi gyda'r cwestiwn hwnnw, am yr unig rhesymau rydych chi wedi'u ddweud, mae'n anodd i'w ateb. Bydd yn rhaid i'r cyflwyniad, os ydyn nhw'n cael eu gynnal yn y cyflwyniad a fydd yn y Prif Weinidog Iechyd, bydd pobl yn disgwyl cymaint o fawr yn gyflym. if they do win the election and he becomes health secretary. People are going to expect an enormous amount quite quickly.

I think in every department... It's not going to be possible. Yeah, because it's just the gap between expectation and reality that I think any opposition party inevitably falls into if they win an election after a very long term being in opposition because you can spend so much time you know promising a better world but you haven't actually had to do very much to prove it so this much we know I think he's done the right thing in getting his memoir out now because he might not be such a popular figure if they win the election in let's

say two and a half years' time. Yeah. It's a good read, though. Is it? I mean, that is an extraordinary life story. And, you know, his story of education taking him out of poverty and into, you know, the world that he's in now, you know, you can't knock him for that. It's the absolute truth. And I don't knock him.

No, good. Well done. It's partly to please Alan in Kazakhstan. But also... Oh, Alan, don't dislike us. Come on a journey with us. Come on the fun bus of feminism. There's plenty of room at the back.

For men. As long as they behave themselves. And don't speak. And as long as you don't criticise a woman driver. We wouldn't do that. I'd like to know what the roads in Kazakhstan are like, in all seriousness. I think some of them would be absolutely terrible, and presumably some of them have been heavily invested in by other countries,

maybe even in the West. If you're in a stand and you have something to say about them, seriously, I want to know. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. Well, I think that concludes our very first filmed edition of Off Air. It does. And I'm now fiddling with my hair which i'm aware will be distracting well you can borrow some of my uh cape moss cosmos drops because they know she's also says you can use it for hair okay a couple of dabs of that

and you'll be restored no i don't want to be bothered on the tube on the way home but i look forward to hearing your stories. People who've been caught in the trap of your... How do you say it? I can never say it. Decolletage. My pipetted decolletage. I'm not actually sure I've got a decolletage.

No, it sounds like a very, very difficult and slightly unwanted third album. There's almost certainly an ointment for it. Right, have a very good evening. Good evening, Jane. It's fine. I can't do any more. No, that's it. That's it. That's it.

I thought you did that very well. Can I just say, I think that your television nodding is exceptional. Thank you. Really. Well, it's encouraging you. It's very, very good. It's just to Thank you. Really. Well, I'm getting, it's encouraging you. It's very, very good. Yeah, it's just to try and encourage you. We're bringing The Shutters down on another episode

of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker. Just shout Play Times Radio at it.

You can also get us on DAB Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy. And you can follow all our tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our Instagram account. Just go onto Insta and search for Jane and Fee and give us a follow. So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we, Jane? Pretty much everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can

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