Stephen Crabb (pictured) has vowed to 'keep the spotlight on Labour's appalling record in Wales' The childhood memories of Tory Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb, the youngest member of the Cabinet, are rather different to those of David Cameron with his loving, stable family and the playing fields of Eton. Crabb’s mother Jacqui fled the family home in Wales with her three sons after one violent row too many with her husband, Crabb’s father. Crabb was just eight years old at the time. He was bullied at school because his mother couldn’t afford a uniform. And he played truant to go potato-picking to raise the cash to buy a pair of trainers. ‘One of my earliest memories is of getting between my mother and father as he came at her with a knife – terrifying,’ says Crabb, talking to me in his Westminster office. ‘There were other incidents when the police came around. My mother was basically living inside a prison suffering massive physical and emotional abuse. She literally scooped us up in her arms, we got on a train and went to Scotland.’ The promotion of Crabb, 41, to the Cabinet in July was not widely predicted. To put it bluntly, with only eight Welsh Conservative MPs, the Prime Minister’s choice was limited. Crabb’s elevation to the Cabinet was noted mainly for him being the only member with a beard – and for getting rid of his ministerial Jag to save money. The crisis in the Welsh NHS, run by the Welsh Assembly, is a golden opportunity for Crabb to make his mark as a national figure. As a county-level schoolboy rugby player, he does not intend to drop the ball. ‘We have been saying for ages that the Labour-run NHS is a shambles. They are slipping behind in education too, and that is what will happen in the rest of the UK if Ed Miliband wins power. I will keep the spotlight on Labour’s appalling record in Wales.’ ‘Crabbie’, as he is known at Westminster, is a Tory ‘boy next door’ version of Labour’s Andy Burnham – sporty, neat and mild-mannered, and, like Burnham, a bit too mild-mannered for some. But few MPs can match Crabb’s rise from a violent broken home and poverty in Labour-dominated Wales to a Tory seat at the Cabinet. He has had virtually no contact with his father, who is still alive, since the family left in a hurry, even though they still both live in the same part of Pembrokeshire. When, by chance, Crabb sees his father, they do not speak. ‘I have forgiven him now,’ he says. ‘Looking back, I can recognise some of the mental or psychological conditions, but as a child you don’t know about that. It leaves many scars, but you can’t hold on to baggage like that.’ On arrival in the shipbuilding town of Greenock near Glasgow, where his mother had fled to her parents’ two-bedroom council flat, Crabb and his brothers went to the local state school. They were the only ones with no uniform and were bullied for their ‘English accent’ (Crabb is from a part of Pembrokeshire known as ‘Little England Beyond Wales’). ‘I was in the town swimming baths and the lifeguard put his leg across the diving board ladder and said, “No English on here”.’ Mr Crabb pictured as a boy with his mother Jacqui . Life was little easier when the family returned to Wales after his mother found her feet. Crabb was always interested in politics. ‘I was the nine-year-old kid who made a scrapbook of the Falklands War,’ he laughs. But his mother’s ordeal opened his eyes to a more profound political awakening. ‘She went from a breakdown and welfare to standing on her own two feet. That’s why I am so passionate about our welfare reforms. She’s a living example of welfare to work.’ By contrast, he says his father was mostly unemployed. ‘Worklessness and dependency is a curse on the Welsh economy. Wales needs welfare reform more than anywhere else. But look who Labour are selecting for rock-solid safe seats. Not local youngsters but Neil Kinnock’s son, Stephen, the “Red Prince”. They don’t speak for the working poor or anyone else.’ It is a rare flash of venom. ‘When people talk about hard choices between heating or eating or buying clothes, I know what it’s like. I’m not saying we lived in poverty in a cave, but there were a few Christmases as kids when we relied on the kindness of friends and the church. ‘I hated having to queue up to be handed my plastic free meal token at my comp, Tasker Milward in Haverfordwest. I nicked off school to pick potatoes to buy stuff like trainers.’ It was the 1980s, time of the miners’ strike. Margaret Thatcher was a hate figure in much of Wales, but teenager Crabb became a fan. ‘Mum was talking to the neighbours about the discount on their council house from Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme. Unless you’ve lived there you can’t appreciate how revolutionary it was for people who never thought they’d own their own home.’ Every Saturday morning, Crabb’s mother took her sons to the library, Saturday afternoons was for swimming, and on Sundays she ‘dragged’ them to church. ‘They’d take the p*** out of me at school, but I’m so grateful I went. I am a Christian and faith is important to me.’ Crabb was no goodie-two-shoes and played lead guitar in a rock band that played the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK, though he admits: ‘We were pretty crap.’ While friends spent gap years in sunny Thailand, Crabb spent his living in a tent in Newport on the muddy Bristol Channel to work as a labourer in the town’s docks. He met French wife Béatrice while studying at Bristol University. ‘She was beautiful, so far out of my league, I learned French…’ Mr Crabb pictured outside Number 10 Downing Street on July 15, the day he was promoted to the Cabinet . Just to have his wicked way with her? ‘To show her I was serious,’ he laughs. ‘One summer I got my final pay packet from a building site in Brighton, took the overnight ferry, got a train to Paris, slept on a park bench and made my way by bus and train to her home in the Ardeche in the South of France. She said “Oui”.’ The couple now have two children, aged 13 and ten. After working for charities and in marketing, Crabb became the MP for Preseli in Pembrokeshire in 2005. He knows his Cabinet break came partly because Cameron needs to play down the Tories’ silver-spoon image. Crabb puts it his own way: ‘If you can’t speak with authenticity to those with the least in society, you’ve no right to go up the driveways of those with more.’
Stephen Crabb recalls moment his father tried to attack mother with knife .
'My mother was basically living inside a prison suffering massive abuse'
To many people's surprise, Mr Crabb was promoted to the Cabinet in July .
He vows to 'keep the spotlight on Labour's appalling record in Wales'
Stephen Crabb (pictured) has vowed to 'keep the spotlight on Labour's appalling record in Wales' The childhood memories of Tory Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb, the youngest member of the Cabinet, are rather different to those of David Cameron with his loving, stable family and the playing fields of Eton. Crabb’s mother Jacqui fled the family home in Wales with her three sons after one violent row too many with her husband, Crabb’s father. Crabb was just eight years old at the time. He was bullied at school because his mother couldn’t afford a uniform. And he played truant to go potato-picking to raise the cash to buy a pair of trainers. ‘One of my earliest memories is of getting between my mother and father as he came at her with a knife – terrifying,’ says Crabb, talking to me in his Westminster office. ‘There were other incidents when the police came around. My mother was basically living inside a prison suffering massive physical and emotional abuse. She literally scooped us up in her arms, we got on a train and went to Scotland.’ The promotion of Crabb, 41, to the Cabinet in July was not widely predicted. To put it bluntly, with only eight Welsh Conservative MPs, the Prime Minister’s choice was limited. Crabb’s elevation to the Cabinet was noted mainly for him being the only member with a beard – and for getting rid of his ministerial Jag to save money. The crisis in the Welsh NHS, run by the Welsh Assembly, is a golden opportunity for Crabb to make his mark as a national figure. As a county-level schoolboy rugby player, he does not intend to drop the ball. ‘We have been saying for ages that the Labour-run NHS is a shambles. They are slipping behind in education too, and that is what will happen in the rest of the UK if Ed Miliband wins power. I will keep the spotlight on Labour’s appalling record in Wales.’ ‘Crabbie’, as he is known at Westminster, is a Tory ‘boy next door’ version of Labour’s Andy Burnham – sporty, neat and mild-mannered, and, like Burnham, a bit too mild-mannered for some. But few MPs can match Crabb’s rise from a violent broken home and poverty in Labour-dominated Wales to a Tory seat at the Cabinet. He has had virtually no contact with his father, who is still alive, since the family left in a hurry, even though they still both live in the same part of Pembrokeshire. When, by chance, Crabb sees his father, they do not speak. ‘I have forgiven him now,’ he says. ‘Looking back, I can recognise some of the mental or psychological conditions, but as a child you don’t know about that. It leaves many scars, but you can’t hold on to baggage like that.’ On arrival in the shipbuilding town of Greenock near Glasgow, where his mother had fled to her parents’ two-bedroom council flat, Crabb and his brothers went to the local state school. They were the only ones with no uniform and were bullied for their ‘English accent’ (Crabb is from a part of Pembrokeshire known as ‘Little England Beyond Wales’). ‘I was in the town swimming baths and the lifeguard put his leg across the diving board ladder and said, “No English on here”.’ Mr Crabb pictured as a boy with his mother Jacqui . Life was little easier when the family returned to Wales after his mother found her feet. Crabb was always interested in politics. ‘I was the nine-year-old kid who made a scrapbook of the Falklands War,’ he laughs. But his mother’s ordeal opened his eyes to a more profound political awakening. ‘She went from a breakdown and welfare to standing on her own two feet. That’s why I am so passionate about our welfare reforms. She’s a living example of welfare to work.’ By contrast, he says his father was mostly unemployed. ‘Worklessness and dependency is a curse on the Welsh economy. Wales needs welfare reform more than anywhere else. But look who Labour are selecting for rock-solid safe seats. Not local youngsters but Neil Kinnock’s son, Stephen, the “Red Prince”. They don’t speak for the working poor or anyone else.’ It is a rare flash of venom. ‘When people talk about hard choices between heating or eating or buying clothes, I know what it’s like. I’m not saying we lived in poverty in a cave, but there were a few Christmases as kids when we relied on the kindness of friends and the church. ‘I hated having to queue up to be handed my plastic free meal token at my comp, Tasker Milward in Haverfordwest. I nicked off school to pick potatoes to buy stuff like trainers.’ It was the 1980s, time of the miners’ strike. Margaret Thatcher was a hate figure in much of Wales, but teenager Crabb became a fan. ‘Mum was talking to the neighbours about the discount on their council house from Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme. Unless you’ve lived there you can’t appreciate how revolutionary it was for people who never thought they’d own their own home.’ Every Saturday morning, Crabb’s mother took her sons to the library, Saturday afternoons was for swimming, and on Sundays she ‘dragged’ them to church. ‘They’d take the p*** out of me at school, but I’m so grateful I went. I am a Christian and faith is important to me.’ Crabb was no goodie-two-shoes and played lead guitar in a rock band that played the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK, though he admits: ‘We were pretty crap.’ While friends spent gap years in sunny Thailand, Crabb spent his living in a tent in Newport on the muddy Bristol Channel to work as a labourer in the town’s docks. He met French wife Béatrice while studying at Bristol University. ‘She was beautiful, so far out of my league, I learned French…’ Mr Crabb pictured outside Number 10 Downing Street on July 15, the day he was promoted to the Cabinet . Just to have his wicked way with her? ‘To show her I was serious,’ he laughs. ‘One summer I got my final pay packet from a building site in Brighton, took the overnight ferry, got a train to Paris, slept on a park bench and made my way by bus and train to her home in the Ardeche in the South of France. She said “Oui”.’ The couple now have two children, aged 13 and ten. After working for charities and in marketing, Crabb became the MP for Preseli in Pembrokeshire in 2005. He knows his Cabinet break came partly because Cameron needs to play down the Tories’ silver-spoon image. Crabb puts it his own way: ‘If you can’t speak with authenticity to those with the least in society, you’ve no right to go up the driveways of those with more.’
Stephen Crabb (pictured) has vowed to 'keep the spotlight on Labour's appalling record in Wales' when the police came around. My mother was basically living inside a prison suffering Crabb, 41, to the Cabinet in July was not widely promoted to the Cabinet . Just to have his wicked