Health Secretary Wes Streeting has revealed he almost burst in tears walking along Downing Street for the first time after Labour’s election victory.
Mr Streeting said despite Sir Keir Starmer winning a landslide majority for Labour, and ousting the Tories after 14 years in power, he had felt “pretty emotionally battered”.
He had narrowly held his Ilford North seat “having scraped in with a majority of 528” – but also saw his partner Joe Dancey lose in the Stockton West seat he had been contesting for Labour.
Recalling his feelings from the election at an event at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Mr Streeting said it had been an “emotional roller coaster overnight”.
But he said: “You get the phone call, you walk up Downing Street, and I sort of woke up that morning feeling pretty emotionally battered
“Actually walking up that street, it was all I could do not to burst into tears with the emotion of it all, and the relief we had won and just the enormity of being able to do something Labour hasn’t been able to do for 14 years.”
He described becoming Health and Social Care Secretary as “daunting”, adding that the “challenge is enormous”.
But the Labour MP insisted: “I wouldn’t want to do anything else. The NHS saved my live when I went through kidney cancer a few years ago so the opportunity to spend my life working to save our NHS and build a social care system fit for the future is just the opportunity of a lifetime and the chance to do something really meaningful for our country.”
