by Tom Watson
I was often assisted by a team of local activists and, on occasion, by a left-leaning celebrity; the comedian Eddie Izzard, whom I admired very much, lent his support in a number of constituencies, including Amber Valley and Northampton North. All this to-ing and fro-ing was no good for my health and well-being, though, and for five weeks my diet largely comprised full English breakfasts in hotels, and takeaway burgers in cars.
Things would only get busier. The following September, having attended a string of hustings from Brighton in the south to Edinburgh in the north, I was elected deputy leader of the Labour Party – succeeding Harriet Harman – on the same day that Jeremy Corbyn was chosen to replace Ed Miliband at the helm.
‘It’s my role to unify the party, hold things together and make it work in difficult times,’ was my message to those who’d voted me in.
Amid all this politicking I continued to have regular diabetes check-ups and, having been referred by Dr Nazeer, also managed to squeeze in an appointment with an NHS nutritionist in central London. It proved to be one of the most humiliating half-hours of my life. As I sat in her consultation room, she quizzed me about my food and drink intake – I gave her an honest summary of my daily excesses – before introducing me to the Department of Health’s ‘Eatwell Plate’. This laminated pie chart, divided into colour-coded segments, illustrated the government’s official recommendations in relation to a wholesome, balanced diet.
‘Now this is probably the best way to explain it to you,’ she said, a little condescendingly, before placing a large red plate on her desk. Upon it lay various shiny, plastic foodstuffs, including a chicken drumstick, a cheese wedge, a bread roll, a carrot and a pineapple. The kind that Malachy and Saoirse had once pretended to cook on the hob of their Toys R Us kiddies’ kitchen.
The nutritionist explained that the Eatwell guidelines endorsed a healthy and varied diet that included five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, with a meal plan based around starchy carbohydrates like potato, bread, rice or pasta. Fat, especially saturated fat, should be reduced – it raised cholesterol, apparently, which could increase the risk of heart disease – and foods high in sugar were to be restricted, too.
As she outlined each segment, she pointed to the corresponding toy (‘bread for carbohydrate… chicken for protein… pineapple for fruit…’) and a little part of me curled up and died. Here I was, Tom Watson, Member of Parliament, deputy leader of the Labour Party, ardent campaigner for justice, being made to feel like I was appearing on some mid-morning CBeebies show. With typical British propriety, though, I just smiled, nodded and – once the consultation ended – thanked her kindly for all her help and guidance.
How on earth has it come to this? I said to myself as I traipsed out of the clinic, consumed with self-pity.
CHAPTER TWO
Inspired
Living with a morbidly obese junk-food addict can’t have been easy. A couple of years before my diabetes diagnosis, I’d struck up a relationship with Steph – she worked for a trade union – and we’d moved into a terraced house in the West Midlands town of Cradley Heath. I would catch the train up from Westminster most Thursday evenings (I often had constituency duties the following day) and, more often than not, Steph would drive over to collect me from the station since the half-mile, seven-minute walk was way beyond my capabilities.
My weight frequently brought about some awkward moments in our household. I remember breaking numerous G Plan dining room chairs, the wooden frames buckling and splintering under the strain of my 22-stone bulk. Once, to my eternal shame, I even cracked the bath, the plastic base caving in as I attempted to haul myself out. Steph had a healthy relationship with food, and had generally tried her best to curb my wayward appetite, but her efforts were often in vain. She would despair as the kitchen cupboards were emptied within days of the Tesco ‘big shop’, shaking her head as she watched me demolish a jumbo bar of Dairy Milk or an entire tube of cheese and onion Pringles.
‘Tom, can’t you just have a couple of chunks instead of the whole bar?’ she’d ask, but I’d usually be too busy filling my face to answer. For me, wolfing down the entire block of chocolate was a physical and physiological compulsion: I couldn’t not eat it all. I continued to be troubled by this lack of restraint, though, and would often ask Steph to hide my sweet and savoury treats so as to remove the temptation. Her most effective hiding place, I later learned, was at the bottom of a stack of saucepans.
I also remember her once encouraging me to bake some ‘guilt-free’ flapjacks – made with oats, nuts and coconut oil – to use as an alternative snacking option. I ended up devouring all eight of them in one go (my mindset was ‘but they’re good for me, right?’) and afterwards I felt so nauseous that I almost threw up.
My brazen eating habits continued when we stepped out of the front door, too. If we ever visited our local McDonald’s Drive-Thru, I’d order two cheeseburgers instead of one Big Mac, purely because they were easier to grasp as I scoffed them at the wheel (waiting until we got home to eat them was never an option). Once, Steph met me for lunch in a city centre café, only to find me staring blankly at my laptop while helping myself to some leftover rainbow cake that another customer had abandoned on the adjacent table.
‘Tom!’ she’d hissed, as a passing waitress looked on disdainfully. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ I’d replied, aghast, before explaining that my cake-pilfering had been utterly involuntary. I’d genuinely not known what I was doing. Recalling this faux pas would always make me wince with embarrassment.
Throughout our time together, such lapses in concentration were commonplace. Steph would often remark that I seemed dizzy and disorientated or, as she put it, somewhat ‘disengaged from the present’. She would talk about me ‘zoning out’ of conversations, so much so that if she had a list of questions to ask me, she would pose the most important one first, because by the third I’d have totally switched off. Neither of us knew it then, of course, but this detached listlessness was most likely a result of diabetes-related hypoglycaemia (commonly referred to as a ‘hypo’), triggered by a sharp drop in my blood sugar levels.
My relationship with food improved marginally, however, once I’d received my T2D diagnosis, and once Dr Nazeer had referred me on to the NHS nutritionist. Urged to follow the Eatwell Plate guidelines, and keen to do things by the book, I adhered to much of her advice. I began to monitor my portion sizes, measuring out my carbohydrates using small kitchen scales like she’d suggested. I remember, at breakfast time, carefully weighing out 20g of dry porridge oats – which probably equated to a fifth of my usual supersized serving – and wondering how on earth that was going to sustain me until lunchtime. More often than not it didn’t, and I’d find myself indulging in elevenses, and loading up with a croissant or two.
Furthermore, I tried to limit my consumption of sugary foods, cutting back on my favourite cakes and biscuits. I also stocked up my kitchen cupboards with fresh, low-calorie produce and – as the nutritionist had suggested – rustling up the occasional home-made meal instead of relying on a takeaway. I was a fairly proficient cook when I put my mind to it, although I always tended to opt for super-elaborate Yotam Ottolenghi or Madhur Jaffrey offerings, which invariably required a long list of exotic ingredients, and commandeered two hours of my time. The end result was usually delicious (Steph was very impressed) but I really should have focused my energy on building a repertoire of simple, easy-to-prepare everyday meals, in order to bring more consistency to my dining habits. With me, though, it was all or nothing.
Despite implementing these changes, and despite trying to follow the standard guidelines, my weight seemed to plateau rather than plummet and, disappointingly, I continued to experience overwhelming carb and sugar cravings. My willpower wobbled and wavered – typically when I was in my London flat, following a long day at work – and I’d often end up yielding to a late-night toasted sandwich and a bottle of Fanta Orang
e, before nodding off on the sofa.
One positive development, though, was the emergence of a certain mindfulness with regard to my eating, and a nascent realisation of the relationship between food and physiology. Although I was still unable to resist the temptation of that toastie and that fizzy drink, I felt myself becoming more aware of my actions, and more conscious of how certain foodstuffs affected me. With this, though, came a certain frustration at my powerlessness. It seems I had identified carbs and sugar as the enemy, but hadn’t yet found the ammunition to vanquish them.
On Thursday 23 June 2016, the day of the UK’s European Union referendum, I was as fat, as tired and as unfit as ever. A fortnight earlier, however, I’d mustered up enough energy to deliver a speech in Granary Square, near King’s Cross, for the ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’ campaign. Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp – like myself, a staunch Remainer – introduced me on the stage, in front of hundreds of supporters. Meanwhile, a couple of miles away, Sir Bob Geldof traded insults with Nigel Farage on the Thames, each having commandeered cruiser boats for their rival campaigns.
‘There is an economic case, a social case, a patriotic case and a political case for us to remain in the EU,’ I said to the crowd gathered in the square. ‘And there is also a Labour case. Cooperation. Peaceful existence. International solidarity. These are Labour values.’
By my side on voting day was my 11-year-old son Malachy. His head teacher had kindly given him special dispensation to take the day off school – so long as he did his homework – and had agreed with my view that he’d benefit greatly from witnessing democracy in action at such close quarters. My son had jumped at the chance to spend this most momentous of occasions with his dad in London. He had developed a genuine interest in politics (he was fascinated by polls and elections, not unlike my childhood self) and had closely followed the referendum run-up. We attended various media appointments that morning, paying visits to all the pop-up television studios located on the green outside Westminster. My son, no doubt feeling slightly star-struck, was thrilled to meet household-name presenters like Sky’s Adam Boulton and the BBC’s David Dimbleby.
‘It’s clear that Britain is better off in Europe,’ I asserted in interview after interview, as my son watched proudly from the wings. Our time together was precious, and it was so nice to have him around.
Malachy and I spent the rest of the day mobilising the vote on the official Remain bus, alongside my colleague Keir Starmer. We also squeezed in a visit to the Labour Party’s campaign HQ, something that I was keen to do for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to hook up with its coordinator, Patrick Heneghan, as well as the staff who’d worked so tirelessly over the previous few months. Secondly, and more selfishly, I wanted to indulge in the pizza and chocolate that every campaign office worth its salt had on offer. As I munched on a deep-pan pepperoni, I remember seeing the nervous expressions on my colleagues’ faces as the exit polls began to filter through. The Brexit result was going to be tighter than we’d ever imagined.
The final stop for me and my mini-helper was my Westminster office, which was housed in the same tower as Big Ben. There, we made ourselves a little dad-and-son den, placing the sofa cushions on the floor, surrounding ourselves with snacks and drinks and watching the results coming in from the various counts across the UK. We channel-hopped between the three main news sources until, as the clock struck 3 a.m., we could no longer keep our eyes open. A few hours later we woke up to the shock news, delivered by Mr Dimbleby, that Leave had prevailed, taking 52 per cent of the vote.
‘I just can’t believe it, Dad,’ said Malachy, glumly shaking his head.
‘You and me both,’ I replied.
Later that morning, feeling utterly crestfallen at this outcome (and suffering the after-effects of a 24-hour carb and sugar binge), I dropped Malachy off with his mum. And, as the day panned out, it soon became pretty apparent that I’d have to delay my scheduled trip to the Glastonbury Festival. Steph and I had initially planned to catch a late-afternoon train from Paddington but, amid all this political tumult, we decided instead to set off the following day. In hindsight, I should have perhaps cancelled the entire jaunt – my workload had multiplied overnight – but I didn’t want to let my partner down. It was going to be her first ever trip to this world-famous music-fest, and I didn’t want to be seen as a party pooper.
Within hours of arriving in Somerset, and having set up camp and dumped our sleeping gear, we decided to drown my post-referendum sorrows by going on a spectacular drinking spree. Downing can upon can of cider, I watched Adele crooning her greatest hits repertoire on the main stage, followed by a few bands in the Left Field tent (where we happened to bump into my pal Billy Bragg), and soon enough the previous day’s trauma was shoved to the back of my mind. Any thoughts of healthy eating were cast aside, too, as I did the rounds of the street food vendors, feasting on pulled-pork buns and Belgian chocolate churros.
Sometime after midnight, Steph and I found ourselves stumbling through a muddy field, following signs for the Silent Disco tent. There, we drank and danced until 5 a.m., giggling at each other as we threw some serious shapes to the tunes pumping through our headphones. At one point I decided to capture our revelling on Snapchat, uploading a goofy-grinned selfie and captioning it with ‘Silent Disco!’ alongside the bespectacled ‘nerd’ emoji. In hindsight, perhaps not the most rational decision ever made by a sitting Member of Parliament.
I awoke the following day feeling dry-mouthed and fuzzy-headed, my joints aching after the previous night’s excesses. Fumbling for my mobile phone to check the time, I happened to notice that there were stacks and stacks of missed calls and messages.
‘Get your arse back to London, Tom,’ one text read. ‘It’s all kicking off here…’
‘Seems like you’re having a blast at Glasto!’ said another. ‘Rave on dude!’
A little confused, I immediately went online. According to various news sites, the Labour Party was in turmoil, Jeremy Corbyn having sacked Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn from the front bench amid rumours of a leadership coup, which had led to reports of senior colleagues threatening to resign in protest. Making matters a whole lot worse for me, however, was the fact that a handful of newspapers had published images of yours truly standing in the middle of a Glastonbury field, sporting baggy clothes and muddy wellies, and clasping a can of Thatchers cider.
‘Tom Watson enjoys Glastonbury disco as civil war erupts in Labour Party,’ gloated one headline, as a #FindTomWatson hashtag trended on Twitter. Not only that – and this explained the ‘rave on’ text – screenshots of my drunken Snapchat posts had been bandied around the internet for all to see. In the circumstances, this didn’t look good. In fact, it looked absolutely bloody dreadful.
You are an utter dick, Watson… I remember thinking to myself as Steph and I gathered our belongings and made a premature exit. We had only been at Glasto for 12 hours.
A couple of press photographers were there to greet me at Castle Cary station just before 10 a.m., gleefully snapping away as I shambled along the platform, missing my train by seconds. According to the timetable, the next London-bound service was due in two and a half hours’ time, so we had no choice but to plant ourselves on a bench, in the middle of nowhere, and sit it out.
I remember Len McCluskey, boss of the Unite union, ringing my mobile and giving me one hell of an ear-bashing. With my head banging, and my blood sugars crashing, I didn’t have the energy to return fire.
‘Len, could you please shout more quietly?’ I replied.
A few days later, back in Westminster, I took myself away from the political wrangling (and the relentless Glasto-related piss-taking) to attend my monthly diabetes check-up. I was dreading the outcome, to be honest; my weekend partying, as well as my referendum-related comfort eating, had no doubt played havoc with my blood sugar levels and had definitely added more wobble to my waistline.
‘Right, let’s get you weighed,’ said Maggie Jones, a very
experienced and uncompromising practice nurse. Her expression was a mixture of concern and disappointment as the scales settled at a point just past the 22-stone (140-kilo) mark.
‘You’ve actually gained three kilograms since last month,’ tutted Maggie. ‘That’s not great, is it?’
‘No, it’s not,’ I said, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself as I dismounted the scales. Maggie went quiet for a few moments before asking me to take a seat.
‘Now, I’m sorry if this sounds a little blunt, Tom, but have you ever considered weight-loss surgery?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I know it’s seen as a last resort but, well, judging by your age, weight and BMI range, the NHS would probably agree to a gastric band or bariatric surgery. But only if you wanted it, that is.’
‘Let me think about it, Maggie,’ I said, with a doleful shake of the head.
As it happened, I’d previously discussed the pros and cons of these procedures with my sister Meg, and had reached the conclusion that – despite it being a viable option for obese patients like me – it wasn’t a route I wanted to pursue. Having looked into the various procedures, I reckoned there were less risky and more humane methods of weight control than one of these highly invasive surgical interventions.
However, in spite of my scepticism, the fact that my diabetes nurse had even chosen to broach the subject was pretty sobering in itself, and marked yet another low point for me. I was at the top end of the morbidly obese range on the BMI scale, which is just about as bad as it gets. By suggesting the most drastic of solutions, she was flagging up the gravity of my condition. It was a warning light, a wake-up call.
That night I had a long moan to Meg over the phone, explaining how demoralised I’d felt following the check-up, and – despite my recent lapses – how disillusioned I’d become with the NHS Eatwell shtick. Despite following the official guidelines as best I could, and despite heeding the professional advice meted out, for months my weight had stubbornly refused to budge from the 285–300-pound (129–136-kilo) range. It was frustrating beyond belief.
