Why does slim equal success in the world of politics? MPs who 'shed a few pounds' appear more dynami
When Keir Starmer was told this week by former Labour spin chief Peter Mandelson that he should lose weight, he must have been left wondering if he can get anything right.
Speaking on Times Radio, Lord Mandelson urged him to ‘shed a few pounds’, saying it would be ‘an improvement’.
If Sir Keir were to lose weight, he would by no means be the first politician to do so.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron is noticeably slimmer now then during his time as prime minister, whilst the late former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson lost five stone and even revealed his dieting secrets in a book.
Former Tory MP Nicholas Soames and ex deputy Labour leader Tom Watson have also undergone dramatic transformations after shedding the pounds.
And Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was pictured on a jog with his dog this morning ahead of his delivery of the Budget.
As for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he recently admitted that he fasts for 36 hours at the start of every week.
Giles Kenningham, the former director of communications for the Conservative Party and a one-time special advisor to David Cameron, told MailOnline that politicians lose weight to try to position themselves as the ‘change candidate’ and to convey ‘youth, energy and dynamism’.
Delivering his Budget today, Mr Hunt referenced Lord Mandelson’s comments about Sir Keir’s weight and joked that the Labour leader should join him in his marathon training.
When Keir Starmer was told this week by former Labour spin chief Peter Mandelson that he should lose weight , he must have been left wondering if he can get anything right. Speaking on Times Radio, Lord Mandelson urged him to ‘shed a few pounds’, saying it would be ‘an improvement’. Above: Sir Keir as a young lawyer in 1994, compared to today
David Cameron
The former PM is said to be trying to get through the day with just a porridge and fruit breakfast, an apple and plenty of black coffee as he tries to sort out the fighting in the Middle East and bolster support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
It is not the first time he has tackled the weighty issue of how to stay in shape.
Before the 2015 election he gave up bread and started running every other day in what he described as a ‘great patriotic struggle’ with his waistline.
In January he was pictured on a lunchtime jog in St James’ Park. The image harked back to his days in Downing Street, when he was often seen out running.
In 2013, Lord Cameron was pictured with a larger frame during a family holiday. He is now noticeably slimmer after going on regular jogs
Mr Kenningham said: ‘If you are trying to position yourself as a change candidate then you want to convey youth, energy and dynamism.
‘Politicians want to display that they’ve got the energy for a relentless job.
‘We live in that kind of instantaneous social media age so there is more pressure for that type of stuff.
‘On one level that sounds quite glib, but if you look at he issues Biden is having over his age, it does actually feed into the overall conversation.
‘If you want to position yourself as change candidate, which is what Starmer is doing, then you have to demonstrate a level of dynamism and energy.
‘You had Lord Cameron doing it, you had Boris Johnson doing it. Theresa May had a personal trainer, so did Liz Truss.
‘I do think if you are doing these jobs, you need high levels of energy anyway. Which is why doing the exercise and having that stress relief is quite important.’
In his first week in his new job in November, Lord Cameron attended a state banquet for the South Korean president at Buckingham Palace, where the menu included a warm tartlet of soft poached egg and spinach puree; breast of Windsor pheasant with croquette of celeriac and calvados sauce; and mango ice cream bombe, washed down with an assortment of wines
Tom Watson
Labour’s former deputy leader shed an impressive six stone in just nine months. But at a huge cost – he had to drink coffee with butter in it.
He revealed he reversed his Type 2 diabetes and lost seven stone after going on the Keto diet.
The Labour deputy leader, 51, said he went on the drastic weight loss regime after his weight soared to 22 stone.
He said he feared that he would die young and leave his two young children without a father unless he made a radical change to his lifestyle.
Labour’s former deputy leader shed an impressive six stone in just nine months. But at a huge cost – he had to drink coffee with butter in it. He revealed he reversed his Type 2 diabetes and lost seven stone after going on the Keto diet. Above: Watson in 2013 and at Glastonbury in 2019
So he ditched the beer and curries he had survived on while working in Westminster and adopted the brutal regime involves shunning sugar, cutting out carbs and exercising.
One part of Mr Watson’s regime was ‘bulletproof coffee’, made using butter. The saturated fats are said to prevent you getting hungry during the day.
He said that the weight loss had been a ‘transformational experience’ and had ‘lifted a brain fog that I didn’t know was there’.
‘I feel like my mental acuity has improved, almost like my IQ has improved. I feel much sharper.’
It was a transformation he required as he tried to keep Labour on a even keel under the leadership of hard Left icon Jeremy Corbyn. He quit the Commons in 2019 and later became a life peer.
Nicholas Soames
Like his famous grandfather Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames cut a larger than life figure in the Commons.
Sir Winston was famous for his prodigious appetite and Sir Nicholas appeared to have followed in his footsteps, with the former minister for food once weighing in at 20 stone.
But he surprised Westminster in 2016 when he displayed a much reduced figure contained within his trademark double-breasted suits.
Like his famous grandfather Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames cut a larger than life figure in the Commons. The former minister for food once weighed in at 20 stone. But he surprised Westminster in 2016 when he displayed a much reduced figure contained within his trademark double-breasted suits. Above: The former minister at the Tory Party conference in 2013, and at the thanksgiving service for the life of King Constantine of Greece at St George’s Chapel, in Windsor Castle, last month
He lost the weight in the space of a year, leading to some claims that he had undergone gastric band surgery.
But the then Conservative MP for Mid Sussex – now a peer – is said to have lost weight through ‘restraint and abstinence’.
According to Bruce Anderson, of the Spectator, his tremendous weight loss is simply down to eating less.
Boris Johnson
The former prime minister and current Mail columnist has spoken publicly about his weight going up and down.
He weighed in at 16.5st in 2018, while he was Foreign Secretary, but overhauled his lifestyle when he started dating future wife Carrie.
In January 2019, Mr Johnson revealed he had lost 12lbs by quitting alcohol and ‘late-night binges of chorizo and cheese’, with Twitter users saying it was a ‘loved up diet’. By March he looked even slimmer when he made headlines with his neat haircut and trim appearance.
But fast-forward a year and Mr Johnson was once again struggling with his weight. He famously admitted ‘I was too fat’ after he was taken into intensive care when he was hospitalised with Covid-19 in April 2020.
The former prime minister and current Mail columnist has spoken publicly about his weight going up and down.
Shaken by the experience, he embarked on a fitness and healthy eating regime, backed by Carrie, and was regularly photographed running in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, having been given permission by the late Queen.
Mr Johnson claimed to have lost a stone in the summer of 2020 and his physique looked trim as a result.
By March 2021, he was nearly two stone lighter than he was when he contracted Covid after cutting down on carbs, chocolate and cheese.
In June last year he used his column to reveal he had used the weight loss drug Ozempic, with mixed results.
‘For weeks I jabbed my stomach, and for weeks it worked. Effortlessly, I pushed aside the puddings and the second helpings. Wasn’t it amazing, I said to myself, how little food you really need,’ he wrote.
‘I must have been losing four or five pounds a week — maybe more — when all at once it started to go wrong. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was something to do with constantly flying around the world, and changing time zones, but I started to dread the injections, because they were making me feel ill.
‘One minute I would be fine, and the next minute I would be talking to Ralph on the big white phone; and I am afraid that I decided that I couldn’t go on.
‘For now I am back to exercise and willpower, but I look at my colleagues — leaner but not hungrier — and I hope that if science can do it for them, maybe one day it can help me, and everyone else.’
Robert Jenrick
Most politicians want to be seen as heavyweights, but ex-minister Robert Jenrick is turning heads by proving he is now a lightweight.
The former immigration minister has triggered Westminster gossip with a rather noticeable ‘glow up’ since resigning from the Government last year.
The 41-year-old father of three has shed the pounds and used his new free time to get himself a crisp new haircut, leading to speculation he is positioning himself for a tilt at the Tory leadership.
Mr Jenrick cut a fuller figure and sported longer hair when he was in Cabinet in last March.
Most politicians want to be seen as heavyweights, but ex-minister Robert Jenrick is turning heads by proving he is now a lightweight. The former immigration minister has triggered Westminster gossip with a rather noticeable ‘glow up’ since resigning from the Government last year. Above: Mr Jenrick in September 2020, and in December
But he is noticeably in better shape recently as he becomes a leading figure on the Tory right.
Sources told the Sun on Sunday Mr Jenrick had been on a ‘leadership diet’, with another adding: ‘His new Caesar haircut has set tongues wagging.’
Michael Gove
Housing Secretary Michael Gove weight 15stone after the Conservatives’ election victory in 2010.
But in 2013 he spent a week at the Austrian Mayr health resort and subsequently lost two stone.
Mr Gove was stripped of his two mobile phones and laptop, banned from drinking caffeine or alcohol, and restricted to consuming just 600 calories a day.
Treatments at the Mayr clinic include colonic irrigation and blood-letting. One female guest, who visited the spa at the same time as Mr Gove told The Mail on Sunday the Cabinet Minister was ‘pink-faced, chilled and smiley’.
‘He took advantage of many health and beauty treatments, and chatted to the women over fruit teas,’ she said. ‘Supper was soup and stale bread – stale because it makes you chew it a lot – while the first thing we had to do every morning was drink Epsom salts and magnesium citrate to clear out the system.
‘Breakfast was sheep’s yogurt and a piece of avocado. The hunger gave us terrible headaches.
One woman said to Mr Gove, ‘It’s grim, isn’t it?’ and he replied, ‘It’s worth it. Politics takes it out of you, and conference season’s coming up – this is a good way to recharge the batteries.’ ‘
The fellow guest admitted that she felt ‘utterly dreadful’ for a couple of days, but then ‘woke up and felt wonderful’.
Friends noted how much trimmer Mr Gove looked after his visit to the resort.
Nigel Lawson
Margaret Thatcher’s former chancellor Lord Lawson was probably the first high-profile politicians to lose weight, and was so successful he published a book about it.
After quitting frontline politics in the late 1980s the five-foot nine-inch Tory decided that the only growth he liked was economic.
He slimmed from a rotund 17 stone to 12 stone in a matter of months, resulting in better health and the Nigel Lawson Diet Book – which came out two years before the first cook book by his daughter, Nigella.
After quitting frontline politics in the late 1980s the five-foot nine-inch Tory decided that the only growth he liked was economic. He slimmed from a rotund 17 stone to 12 stone in a matter of months and kept the weight off.
And he managed to keep the weight off into his old age.
In keeping with his Thatcherite principles, he scoffed at the idea of government intervention to help the fat to lose weight.
He once told the House of Lords: ‘I speak from personal experience. The problem of obesity is simply a matter of eating less and drinking less and that is 100 per cent a matter of willpower.
‘It is not a matter of giving more money to local authorities, much as I understand their desire to have that.’
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