BOOKSHELF My son remembers me not being able to kick a ball around when he was young ... I really regret that, it saddens me
TOM WATSON starts to choke up when he talks about missing out on key moments as his children grew up because of the three-decade sugar addiction that saw him balloon to nearly 23st.
The veteran Labour politician, who has lost a staggering 8st, speaks with all the zeal of the sinner who has repented as he discusses with brutal frankness the impact of obesity upon his life.
“By the time I reached 22st, I just thought I was a naturally greedy person,” he admits.
“I lived for 30 years and I was hungry every minute of every hour of every day of those 30 years. I never wasn’t hungry. What I know now is that I was having three-hourly sugar highs and crashes.”
The addiction, he says, became overwhelming, to the point where he would pinch other people’s leftovers from restaurant tables to satisfy his cravings.
“I remember sitting in a restaurant and a friend coming in and being horrified because I was leaning over the next table to eat some abandoned rainbow cake while staring blankly at my laptop,” he recalls.
Tom left Parliament after 18 years at the election in December, standing down as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s deputy and the MP for West Bromwich East.
Now, without a steady income for the first time in two decades and a weight-loss memoir to promote, Downsizing: How I lost 8 Stone, Reversed My Diabetes And Regained My Health, Tom has been taking stock of his life and career. He has also written a political thriller, out this autumn.
Known for his dogged pursuit of a variety of causes during his time in Westminster, he remains under a cloud over his ill-advised championing of paedophile fantasist Carl Beech, aka Nick.
It turned out to be the biggest mistake of his career. Tom used parliamentary privilege to claim the possible existence of a Westminster paedophile ring. So it was that the reputation of statesmen such as the late Sir Ted Heath, the late Sir Leon Brittan, and others, were dragged through the mud by the Metropolitan Police’s disastrous investigation.
Last July Beech was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and is serving an 18-year jail sentence.
Tom, meanwhile, resigned his deputy leadership of the Labour Party in mid-December, after four years, for “a hundred reasons”.
He says: “I’d had a good innings; I’d had 19 years. I didn’t want to leave it too late to quit, until I was unfulfilled. I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to go on a positive note.
“When I was elected I thought I knew everything, and now I am retired I realise that I don’t know very much at all…”
Asked about Operation Midland and his involvement – he was described by lawyers for falsely accused former MP Harvey Proctor as a “vehicle for conspiracy theorists” – he is phlegmatic. “I was asked by Theresa (May) to reassure victims that if they came forward their cases would be investigated, but now I am not an MP there is not a route for me there. “That’s done. That’s done,” says Tom, quietly, suggesting understandable embarrassment over his support for Beech’s claims. That perhaps helps to explain his new focus for 2020. For, along with the 8st he lost between the summers of 2017 and 2018, Tom also claims to have shed every inch of political ambition. Today the man once known as “Tommy TwoDinners” is drawn not to hubris but humility. “I set myself two new rules when I left politics: To remain an instrument for good and to work only with relentlessly positive people,” he asserts.
And presumably those who tell the truth, and nothing but.
He is training, somewhat bizarrely, to become a “Level 2 gym instructor”. At 52, he admits to being the oldest person in his class by some stretch.
He is also determined to use his “public platform” to help Britain’s estimated 3.4 million sufferers of Type 2 diabetes to reverse their condition, having been a sufferer himself until he slimmed down from 23st and did just that.
It is all a far cry from his life in Westminster but he is determined to present himself as a contented man.
He explains that a new opening has come up for him, “doing a proper shift” at a David Lloyd gym.
“I’m not sure which gym it will be at yet, but it’s probably going to be at the end of January.”
But will he actually be taking exercise classes?
“Oh I’m not ready to supervise other people yet, I’ll probably just be cleaning machines,” he says.
This is certainly an unusual post-political career route for a seasoned senior politician and could be read as further evidence of his determination to transform his life.
He is candid about the brutal lows that his 30-year sugar addiction caused him. He recalls enjoying a Bakewell tart at a friend’s house, then raiding the fridge during the night to feast on the remaining three slices, leaving only a trail of crumbs for his hosts the next morning.
“A family member remembers me walking into the house and associating me with the noise of the fridge door squeaking,” he adds.
But after a lifetime of being ruled by his sugar cravings, he has adopted the Keto diet. A doctor he met at a political function confided his concerns that Tom might be a Type 2 diabetic after observing how many times he had gone to the loo. Medical tests proved the doctor right.
Keto has attracted controversy but does seem to work as a means to lose a lot of weight fast, by consuming high calories in place of carbohydrates and fooling the body into burning body fat.
“I lost a pound a day because I didn’t feel hungry. I’ve been on fad diets before and felt hungry all the time,” he says. “But I’m not giving a blueprint to anyone. I’m saying how I did it. People have to make their own decisions because the same foodstuff has a different physiological response in different bodies. We can’t have one-size-fits-all in health.”
Tom’s reinvention extends to his role as the father of Malachy, 14, and 11-year-old Saoirse.
“I got fit to live longer for them and life is completely different now,” he says.
“We go on long walks and I’m more alert and in the moment. Instead of them complaining about me on my phone, I’m complaining about them being on theirs.”
Tom was divorced from their mother, Siobhan, in 2012, but they remain close
Picture by Rowan Griffiths friends and he now looks after his children every other weekend and for half the holidays.
He says: “My son remembers me not being able to kick a ball around when he was young. They remember things like that. I really regret that and it saddens me.”
He tells of undertaking the third annual RunForJo last June – in memory of the late MP Jo Cox – and crossing the finishing line holding hands with his daughter, as his son cheered them on.
“That was a fabulous dad and daughter moment,” he says. “I only wished I’d done all this a decade earlier – all those wasted years slumped on the sofa.”
He is deeply relieved to have had a second chance with his children, and is similarly “relieved” that he is not responsible for helping chart his party’s next move.
“Labour needs a very honest internal conversation about why it can’t win elections,” he says.
“The next leader needs to show what went wrong and what they can do to put it right. That’s a huge responsibility on anyone’s shoulders.”
But not his. He’s looking forward to being a David Lloyd intern.
Downsizing: How I lost 8 Stone, Reversed My Diabetes And Regained My Health, by Tom Watson, left (Kyle Books, £14.99). For free UK delivery, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 or visit expressbookshop.co.uk