As deputy leader, Tom Watson may now be the Labour Party’s only hope

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[/audioplayer]Last week I was talking to a member of the shadow cabinet about Jeremy Corbyn’s impending victory as Labour leader. ‘Forget about coups and resistance movements. There’s only one person who can save the party now — and that’s Tom Watson.’ It’s a common theme: those who had just recently denounced Watson as a fat thug now see him as the party’s only hope of salvation.

On Saturday, half an hour before Corbyn’s almost certain coronation, Watson will be unveiled as his party’s new deputy leader. He will appear a rather unlikely saviour. His dark suits and heavy jowls give him the appearance less of a political healer than of a low-rent 1970s mafia grunt. There was a time when that was an image Watson would have cultivated — first as a fixer for the right-wing AEEU union, then as a hit man for Gordon Brown.