YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Watson

lines on the record: 44
first: 2018-06-14
most recent: 2018-06-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Matt Hancock, the culture secretary, ribbed me mercilessly in a speech he gave to UK music. So I managed to thank him for implementing two manifesto commitments in his first few months as culture secretary and offered him a free ticket to Labour Life. So if he wants to go, he'd be very welcome. And I'm sure he might actually learn something if he's up.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a tried not to be, but the Daily Mail generally find out where I am these days. But they didn't find me at Dingall's Brilliant Live Venue in Camden where I saw fantastic negrito who is one of the best live performing artists I've ever seen. And if your listeners like R&B, blues and rock by this guy's new album, which is out this month.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but I am seeing a lot of gigs at the moment. And the great thing about having the culture brief is I can go to live music events and call it work.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sometimes he does, sometimes he does. What I sort of now realise about sort of leadership or sort of deputy leadership, very often the people around you that don't understand those relationships, you know, you're sort of managing your teams to try and get them to understand each other.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was tricky, but I've got to say, you know, what is it, two and a half years now? We've never raised our voices with each other. It's only ever been courteous. It's very, very friendly. My kids adore Jeremy. He's very thoughtful. So we will talk either by text or face-to-face most days. We do represent different traditions in the party, but I think both of us understand that that is a strength, not a weakness”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he is coming for me. You know, they're up in their delegates and all of that. No, I mean, look, I guess losing £86, what will be will be? He is powerful enough. If he wants to take me out as deputy leader, he probably could. That's up to him. I'm just going to get on and try and bring everyone back together and do what I can as best I can.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've not spoken to him since that week. You see, I felt very difficult there because I unite funded my campaign. They didn't nominate me. And I think he felt that I in some way was obligated to him personally then. And my obligation was to the Labour Party. You may severely criticise me for taking the wrong position, and that's fair. But I'm not going to be bullied by Len McCluskey. I certainly wasn't going to be bullied by Rupert Murdoch, so I'm definitely not going to be bullied by Len McCluskey. And I think he found that very difficult.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is very difficult that because we were sort of friends socially as well as sort of understood each other politically. Sadly, we fell out over that.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, if it's a lousy deal, we want a meaningful vote. I mean, if it is going to sort of send the economy into nosedive, then we've got an obligation to do what we think is right. But in any interview, even one that's sort of quite long term like this one, I mean, I genuinely don't know from day to day where this is going. There are a hundred different connotations of outcome that random events or political fixes are going to lead to.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that is why the deal is so important, right? We're not going to block Brexit. We have got a referendum obligation to deliver a deal, to leave the EU. The row is about the deal.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there are opportunities for them when we leave the European Union, but that depends on the deal. And if you look at the sort of UK economy, I often look at London now. It's like a sort of Renaissance city-state where you've got sort of workers that live on the outside of the wall and have to come in and run this city, which has got its own economy. And then the economy of the rest of the country works differently. A massive transformational government that believes in economic change can actually say to the north of England, to the Midlands, we are going to make massive infrastructure investment. That model of capital that Thatcher and the sort of the Blair government gave you, we're going to move on from that.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Northern Europe, with more billionaires than ever before in London. And this guy walks in after 35 years on the outside and say, he doesn't have to be like this. We can have economic change. And that young generation that we need to turn out and vote because not enough of them voted, they're not getting their share of the political economy either. They want a bigger share of the cake.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, because I think we need a whole new view on the political economy. You look back at the Thatcher years where huge sections of public services that used to be done by the state were sort of handed over to the private sector. And that model isn't working anymore. Capital is very cunning. It finds ways of gaming the system. Look at Carillion. Look at the example of privatized water, which I think is the least justified utility privatization of all those years. £18 billion worth of dividends paid out in that time. You could mend a lot of things with £18 billion. And I just look at why did Jeremy's message resonate in a way that people didn't quite spot in London? You know, the report out nine out of ten of the poorest regions in Northern Europe are in the UK. The richest region, London. There's your Brexit dilemma straight over, right? We have got some of the poorest communities.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, if you neck and neck in the opinion polls, you're not going to win a general election. Everyone said the local government elections in May were very bad for us. We started those elections neck and neck in the polls and we came out with an equal share of the vote. So we know we've got to do better. Jeremy knows that, I know that. The whole party knows that. But drawing the conclusion that it's Jeremy Corbyn's fault is not a view I subscribe to. He's offering the British people a very different... Prospectus and manifesto. He wants massive economic and transformational change. And I'm with him on that. I was very proud of that manifesto. And we've got to go out and explain that before the general election and during.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, what was I saying about how difficult it is to be deputy leader of the Labour Party? I mean, the one thing I did say to Jeremy and made it public was that I thought it would be very difficult to lead the Labour Party into a general election when he lost a vote and no confidence of his parliamentary colleagues. But he proved me wrong on that. He spoke over the heads of MPs, the membership backed him. They thought he'd been unfairly treated. And he went on to do much better in the general election than everyone thought, probably included himself. And I think that earned him the right to take us into the next general election whenever it might come. And I think it's my obligation and duty to try and hold everyone together and make sure that we win that general election.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was Rebecca Brooks that targeted me. I mean, to be fair to Rupert Murdoch, I don't think he probably knew who I was. And on the Tony Blair thing, I don't think I got rid of him. I did resign as a defence minister in 2006. I've not been in that position very long. And it did cause great trauma for the government. But I mean, I think the honest truth is Iraq led to Tony Blair going. I don't think he would deny that, no.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I obviously don't want to cause offence or upset to people whose loved ones have been accused of crimes. I have got regret in that center. This isn't related to Leon Britton. I think the wider issue of institutional child sexual abuse and the way the state behaved in specific allegations against powerful people, I still want this inquiry to yield the facts of what went on because I have a very strong hunch that there were other cases where the state treated politicians differently to ordinary citizens and I don't think that's right and I think we need to know it.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just to say, I never made the allegation of child sexual abuse to Liambra and public. It was made in a newspaper from a leak that I suspect was a police leak, although I can't prove that. I had no intention of making it public. But when it was made public, I did have to say that allegations had been made. And again, that's now with the independent inquiry on child sexual abuse and the police had a look at it as well.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Man known as Nick, not me, but somebody else, there's plenty of All I can say on that is there are a much larger number of allegations that came through my office and were sort of passported into the police that I don't know where they are in the system. I don't know whether they're being investigated, whether they were discounted. And I think the place for it is for the independent inquiry on child sexual abuse to sort of examine that body of evidence or allegation and it's best not sort of conducted in public discourse.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With the Murdoch stuff, what we needed to do was shake the tree to get attention because people knew that phone hacking was more widespread. I mean, the whole of the sort of tabloid media knew it, but there was a conspiracy of silence. And what I tried to do, again, was shake the tree to try and really get media interest. But of course, the way this tabloid media would deal with allegations of child abuse is very different to how they ultimately dealt with allegations of phone hacking on their own watch. And so you end up in a situation where you can't possibly judge whether an allegation of abuse that an individual makes is accurate, whether there's a plot to mislead or whether people are just mistaken.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Conducting criminal inquiry. So I think there's a lot we already know the state covered up for two MPs. What we don't know comprehensively is whether there were other politicians for whom the state intervened.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The honest truth is, I don't know. I mean, we've got this independent inquiry. There's still some police inquiries. I mean, for me, what we were trying to get to was a sort of Levison-style inquiry for historic allegations of institutional abuse or an inquiry into whether the state treated people of power differently to other citizens. And very interestingly, in recent weeks, of course, with the Hugh Grant story of Jeremy Thorpe, what we've had is the second case where it seems very clear to me that the state covered up a crime on behalf of a powerful political figure. The first one, which actually sort of halfway through the child abuse story, was Cyril Smith, where the late great Liz McKean, the investigative journalist, found the special branch files that show they were aware of allegations of child abuse, and the state decided not to”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Got a very mixed view of it. I still feel very responsible to people who have not had their injustices righted. And there's clearly a lot more that went on that is currently in the public domain. But on a very personal level, if I could honestly have personal choice in it, I would never talk about phone hacking or tabloid newspapers ever again. I'm up to my eyeballs with it. But life isn't like that. And once you start something, you've got to see it through to the end. And I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it like I used to. I'm much more chilled out about it.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We could sort of, you lived every minute of it, and I did live in fear for a long time. You know, I think I was being followed. In the end, I was. You know, you just get that feeling of vulnerability. And no one thought the story would ever come out. No one thought the parliament would act. And I just felt very lonely.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, in fact, a few people framed it and sent it to me, but yeah, I mean, it's still on my office wall. I sometimes look at it and think I should take it down, to be honest. In the time when before the story really got out, and when they were putting me under real pressure, it's the nearest I've come, I think, to sort of really sort of given up and just been broken by it.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they tried to portray me as someone who was mentally ill. I mean, first of all, I mean, they told people that I was an alcoholic and that I was going to check into the Betty Ford clear, quite literally. So I gave up alcohol for a year just to show that there's no way they were going to sort of spread that rumor. It was a very boring year, I have to say.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and they hired a former covert surveillance specialist from the Met Police to follow me. I still haven't got to the bottom of all of that stuff.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, nowhere near the intrusion that some of the people I subsequently met. Going through the bins. They've been through the bins. It's always cheers me up that the day they went through bins was when the baby had been poorly and there was a bit of a liner full of dirty lapis. You've got to try to take any victory where you can when you're under pressure from Murdoch's papers.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, more than that, they wanted revenge and threatened everything to the point where I decided in order to try and sort of save my marriage and sadly failed at that, I would stand down as an MP in 2010. But I just had this voice in my head that said, don't let it go.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was desperation, really. I resigned under Tony Blair in 2006, which effectively meant the sort of Murdoch papers went to town on me.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny because we're still, even now, almost a decade on, it's still unraveling and there's still civil litigation and debates in Parliament. But what first did...”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it was an anger. I think my sort of very early experiences in politics, which are way, way earlier than most people, certainly people who aren't the kids of MPs or peers or whatever. You know, we were a normal family from Kiddimista. It ended up with me getting a job at the Labour Party at the age of 17, which was meant to be a year out from sixth form. But I loved it so much that I stuck around. And of course, it was that period where the Labour Party was absolutely on the edge and we'd got all the kind of militant inquiries. The Kinagira. It was brutal politics and there was brutality in the decisions that were made by our political leaders and their opponents. And that was the kind of period I'd come through. So I guess I just understand what it's like when people are sort of implacably opposed.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, in the 80s, in the latter years, when the sort of communist party collapsed, she joined the Labour Party. But when I started forming my own political opinions, I remember in the miners strike in the 80s, I very strongly believed that Arthur Scargill should have given the miners a vote in the industrial ballot. And she actually called me an insult to the working class. It was absolutely furious with me at the time. It was slightly bewildering that you have a row with your grandma over a strike ballot. When you're your teacher,”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now my grandmother was quite a hard line communist from the sort of Sheffield Steel tradition. And again, I didn't understand that that was an unusual childhood really as well, because we very often talk about some of the Russian heroes in her mind. And all the”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm afraid political murder. I used to be slightly embarrassed about it. And then I moved on to the October 74 election from collecting numbers to pasting up the electoral registers onto boards with copy decks, which shows how old I am. But it kind of fostered this real interest in the mechanics of elections, which I guess it probably ended up with people saying that I was a bruiser because I was always interested in organisation because it's very important in politics.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because you only know this in hindsight when you're an adult, you look back on your childhood and realise how unusual it is. And my mum and dad were Labour Party members and Labour Party activists, not from a sort of professional political family. It was always around the family dinner table. My dad was a local councillor in the 70s. But I didn't think it was unusual to be collecting polling numbers at French first school in the February 1974 general election at the age of seven for Harold Wilson. But that's actually what I did. Seven, that's it.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, I have been thinking about this in recent months because I do feel like losing all this weight has actually been a transformational experience for me in a way that I didn't know or anticipate nine months ago when I started trying to lose weight. And I do genuinely feel a lot calmer, a lot more in equilibrium. So I guess I am a bit more chilled out. This isn't political. In fact, there are the occasional day where I feel like I maybe am too chilled out for the circumstances I find myself in. I think it sort of adds to resilience and patience. And right now being Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, those are two qualities that I think are quite useful to me.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, look, in these jobs there's always someone trying to make you a diminished figure. Actually, I've very chilled out these days. I tend not to worry about any of that. And the role of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is you've got to write your own job description. It's a very unusual job. And the context of the Times is really important. Certainly since Jeremy's second leadership victory, what I've tried to do is just try and hold everyone together. There's some very powerful forces bearing down on all the political parties that are external. And we've got some big figures that are in constant disagreement. And you're just trying to forge an understanding. And every day there's sort of turmoil, but you've just got to do your best.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just stopped being hungry, and it's really helped me. And I feel really grateful to the people that have researched the science around nutrition and diet because there's been some big steps forward in the last few years.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, not every day. For me, I now know that I was addicted to sugar and taking in a higher level of saturated fat into your diet is one way when you come off sugar you can stop yourself being hungry and what I realised was I thought I'd been hungry every hour of every day of every week for 35 years and actually what I'd got was decades of sugar craving and when I was coming off sugar I think it must be how people addicted to drugs must feel like they're going through withdrawal and it was quite difficult in the first few weeks and sort of bulletproof coffee which is this idea of mainlining saturated fat into your physiology in geopoe yeah”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It doesn't be huge, yeah. I've got young kids, I turn 50 a year and a half ago, and I kept reading these biographies of Labour politicians that died in their 50s and 60s and thought, I'm actually seriously got to deal with this. The best bit about it for me is actually it's kind of 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. Well, you feel sharper.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because I didn't know where it was going to go. I just knew I'd reached a point that I'd been piling the pants on over the years. And you've only got to look at Steve Belly, The Guardian, to sort of realize I overweight I was.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I've lost £86 so far. I started the end of last year in the autumn and I cut out sugar and then started walking, then jogging, then riding a bike, then I joined a gym. Now I'm doing a few weights and I feel great and very chilled out.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now they say I'm a diminished figure in politics, Nick, but thankfully because of weight loss. Oh, they probably say with the other meaning as well.”
2018-06-14 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Tom Watson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source