Tom Watson is rightly proud of shedding more than seven stone in weight. He had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and it took him more than 25 years to gain control over his diet.
However, in the past few weeks, he has been throwing around his remaining 15 stones in Westminster.
Labour’s still-heavyweight deputy leader has launched a one-man campaign on two fronts: to try to stem the flow of defections and to eradicate anti-Semitism from the party.
Tom Watson is on a campaign to eradicate anti-Semitism from the Labour party
The result: an existential threat to the Labour Party’s unity – with rumours of a coup as Jeremy Corbyn reels from a series of personal and public setbacks.
Needless to say this is a high-risk strategy. Watson has already been accused of treachery by some of Corbyn’s ultra-loyalists.
How ironic that Corbyn became leader thanks to the support of Momentum, a party-within-a-party, but now faces a challenge to his authority from Watson’s nascent party-within-a-party in the form of a new group of social democratic Labour MPs.
This alternative group is seen as Watson’s powerbase as he tries to consolidate a rival centre of power to the one run by Corbyn’s clique. It follows the party leader’s refusal to promote Labour MPs from all shades of opinion rather than just from the Left.
Not surprisingly, Corbyn’s fellow Islington political inamorata Emily Thornberry angrily turned on Watson during a meeting, saying: ‘Which members of the Shadow Cabinet do you want to sack?’
The fact is that, ever since he called on the party leadership to do more to stamp out anti-Semitism, Watson has been a marked man by those who accuse him of disloyalty.
He may have lost seven stones of timber but Watson still has the hide of a hippo.
Indeed, he put up a truculent fight when asked by party chiefs to consider returning £500,000 in donations from Max Mosley, who published a by-election campaign leaflet in 1961 which blamed non-white immigrants for diseases such as tuberculosis, VD and leprosy.
There has been tension between Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson since they were elected leader and deputy in 2015
Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised for his lack of action amid Labour's anti-Semitism row
The truth is there has been tension between Watson and Corbyn ever since they were elected deputy and party leader on the same day in 2015.
At last autumn’s Labour conference, Watson was humiliated when he was denied a speaking slot on the platform.
One of the big divisions has been
