The Londoner: Tom Watson and David Davis weigh up obesity campaign

Dita von Teese leaves audiences shaken and stirred / William Hague's 'nauseating' past / Disappointed House of Commons diners left hungry / From lift troubles to local yobs: can the government solve Brexit?
Weight lifting? Tom Watson in action.
Getty Images
8 February 2019

Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, and David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, are putting together a public-health announcement to tackle obesity after losing more than nine stone in weight between them.

The pair have met over black coffee in a “quiet corner” of the Commons tea room for discussions on how to improve the help given people who want to eat healthily and exercise. Although it’s in its “nascent stages”, the initiative will continue Watson’s work raising awareness of the relationship between sugar and type 2 diabetes. Watson has previously called for “a bigger national conversation about the amount of sugar” we consume, which he says is at “poisonous levels”. He has compared the power of the sugar lobby to the tobacco lobby — “except there are stricter restrictions on tobacco advertising”. Obesity costs the NHS £6.1 billion a year, according to Public Health England.

Watson started dieting “seriously” when he was 22 stone in August 2017. He has since lost more than seven stone by eliminating carbohydrates and sugar. Davis started his “Tom Watson journey” in July 2018, immediately after resigning from the Cabinet over Theresa May’s Chequers deal and has lost nearly two stone. He put on weight working 18-hour days as a minister and being driven everywhere in a ministerial car. But he also says: “I am a sugar addict.”

Weighing it over: David Davis
Getty Images

Davis — once a Tate & Lyle executive — says his advice to those who need to lose weight is: “Don’t eat sugar. Don’t drink pop with high fructose in it. It doesn’t just make you fat, it makes you hungry.”

Despite their extreme political differences, Davis calls Watson “a good friend”. “He and I were both signatories to the court action against the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act — when Theresa May was Home Secretary,” he said. Along with Liberty, they “took the Home Secretary to court and won in the High Court — quite funny”.

The boy chunder

As a 16-year-old, William Hague delivered a much-lauded speech to delegates at the 1977 Tory party conference, but not everyone was left impressed.

According to royal biographer Kenneth Rose’s latest journals, former Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington was “nauseated” by the teenager. “If he is as priggish and self-assured as that at 16, what will he be like in 30 years’ time?” Carrington asked Rose — the pair were in Blackpool together for the Tory gathering at the Imperial Hotel.

“Like Michael Heseltine,” replied Conservative MP Norman St John-Stevas, who was with them.

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Among the many Brexit casualties, spare a thought for the hundreds of people who were told yesterday by email that they have had their bookings cancelled for the House of Commons restaurant later this month. For security reasons, the restaurant is open to the public only during recess, which has been cancelled to deal with Brexit.

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Are ITV2 schedulers trolling Liam Neeson? This week the channel broadcast an old episode of US cartoon Family Guy, in which character Peter Griffin fights the Irish actor after luring him into a fake confessional booth. Neeson has cancelled several public appearances after he made comments about racial violence.

What a Teese: Dita von Teese (Dave Benett/Getty Images for The Mandrake)
Dave Benett/Getty Images for The

Cocktail Dita is the ultimate 'Teese'

Burlesque star Dita Von Teese climbed into her famous martini glass at The Mandrake in Fitzrovia last night to launch the hotel’s new restaurant, Yopo. Designer Daniel Lismore was there to support his “mesmerising, hypnotic” friend.

“As a gay man I’m not even sure what I’m feeling,” he explained as von Teese stripped down.

Tailor Joshua Kane, meanwhile, revealed he is working on a new Hollywood film. “My dream is to win an Oscar for best costume,” he confessed.

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Lifting the tone: Diana Johnson
John Phillips/Getty Images for T

How can voters trust the Government to sort out Brexit if it can’t tackle “youths throwing stones at buses”, asks Diana Johnson (above). Speaking in the Commons yesterday, the Labour MP said the issue reminds her of a Camden local who, greeted by a canvasser in the 1950s, said: “If you can’t stop them pissing in our lift, how can you expect me to believe that you can stop the Germans re-arming?”

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Tory Victoria Atkins wants “a revised version of Fireman Sam” that would inspire girls. Sam does have a female colleague, Penny, but an episode titled Girls’ Night In, which focused on a curling iron-related incident, may have tipped the scales the other way.

Downton Party: Joanne Froggatt and Laura Carmichael (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Newport Beach & Company) 
(Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Newport Beach & Company)

Life’s a beach at The Langham with Lily, Lesley and co​

As London battles the cold, a touch of summer in Marylebone last night. The Langham hotel hosted the Newport Beach Film Festival, with guests including actor Lesley Manville and model Lily Cole. Laura Carmichael and Joanne Froggatt, who recently finished work on the Downton Abbey film, caught up with its writer, Julian Fellowes.

Also in attendance was actor Paapa Essiedu, who has played Hamlet and appeared alongside Ben Chaplin and Charlotte Riley in Channel 4’s mini-series Press, and was among the 10 winners of the One to Watch award. He addressed the water-cooler topic of the week: Liam Neeson. “I don’t understand why people expect him to have an intelligent, woke, educated opinion on race politics just because he’s an actor,” Essiedu told us. “We are so obsessed with celebrities that we give them these platforms, and when they let us down we’re shocked about it. People are too outraged.”

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Labour MP Jess Phillips tells The Spectator podcast Women With Balls that she is thrilled with the reaction to her speech on poshness “but I feel like I’m going to become the face of olives —someone sent me some in the post today”.

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