There I was, going about my usual routine in a small shop on Saturday when an unexpected sound made my heart race and my soul almost leave my body. The ringtone playing nearby was the same tune that used to be my old “wake-up” alarm. It’s a sound that has always been associated with the early mornings spent in Downing Street, where it would go off every day at 5:15am. That cheerful yet grueling noise reminded me of the ghost of government past, sitting right next to the fudge and fridge magnets.
Working in such an environment is no easy task. Many industries are known for their stress levels, but politics takes it to another level entirely. From personal experience, I can say that it’s one of the most exhausting careers out there. There are photos of me at family gatherings that look like a skull wrapped in tissue paper. It’s as if you’re running an Ironman triathlon non-stop, with the occasional Olympic sprint thrown in, all while carrying an elephant on your back and reciting prime numbers in Shakespearean verse. And to make things worse, tennis ball machines keep launching human waste at you. That’s just an average morning in Westminster.
This isn’t meant to be a pity party, but it does help explain why pictures of Barack Obama from when he first took office in 2008 look so different from those taken in 2016. Two terms in power feel like eight years in dog years – one year of dealing with the chaos takes about eight years off your life physically.
I worked in Theresa May’s Downing Street from July 2017 to July 2019, and she had already been Prime Minister for about a year before that. I’m not sure anyone would call those three years short. When she gave her resignation speech outside the iconic black front door, she looked completely drained. But just three years later, in 2022, she was casting her vote on Boris Johnson’s leadership in a ballgown. Now, she’s found her place in the House of Lords, Chatham House, and Yale. We can only guess what moisturiser she uses, but whatever it is, it seems to be working wonders for her.
The pressure of such a high-stakes job takes a toll on both the body and the spirit. There’s the constant lack of sleep, partly due to worry and workload, and partly because your phone can’t be on silent in case something terrible happens. There are the irregular meals and quick caffeine fixes. Then there are the periods of gloom and lethargy where complex, once-in-a-generation problems with serious ethical implications seem to pile up before you.
And, as I suspect the current prime minister is experiencing, there’s the constant fear that people are plotting against you, which keeps your body in a perpetual fight-or-flight state. I had a period where I dreamed every night that Chris (now Lord) Grayling – someone I might have met only twice in my life – was chasing me through the skies like in the Hunger Games. Like I said, it really does things to you.
This weekend, I managed to get both sun and windburn despite the changing weather. Still, my healthy glow is nothing compared to a former Conservative MP who was holidaying in the same town as me. Part of this is due to the new seaside trend of saunas and cold water swimming, which this former minister did with my husband on Saturday evening.
Storm Dave was raging as I wondered how, considering the potential heart attack risk from extreme temperature changes, the politician’s obituary might read: his glittering ministerial career, his impressive CV before entering parliament, details of his wonderful wife, and then the euphemistic yet truthful line “found dead in a remote sauna with a younger male friend.”
I can’t tell you how well this guy looked. And I never considered him one of the unhealthy or stressed ones when he was in government. He left parliament after the 2024 general election, so we’re coming up to two years since he became a civilian again, and he looks like he’s been transformed into Benjamin Button. He hasn’t retired either. Unlike many former Tory MPs who struggled to find work, he now has a very demanding job at a multinational company. That’s what a stint in government does to you – a major role in the private sector feels comparatively soft.
Politicians get called a lot of things, most of them unprintable. Former politicians are a different story altogether. They’re like livers or lungs, organs that can be abused by cigarettes or alcohol for years but still have amazing regenerative qualities, provided a major course of action is taken in time. Otherwise, they will eventually wither and blacken. Some MPs and ministers will be planning their next careers now. Others will find it comes as a great surprise, as shocking as a warm sauna after a freezing cold plunge. But it’s invigorating and restorative, and you’ll attract compliments from younger male friends like you wouldn’t believe.
Cleo Watson is a former deputy chief of staff to Boris Johnson and co-hosts The Independent’s politics podcast, ‘In The Room’, with ex-deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara. New episodes come out every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
