TUESDAY M.E.N.JANUARY 13, 2009 FEATURES « 9 It’s me time now for former ‘loony leftie’ A BBC documentary team followed former Militant firebrand Derek ‘Degsy’ Hatton as he prepared to celebrate his 61st birthday. Simon Donohue joined them. . .

BBC camera crew is too. He takes 24 vitamin tablets a day, thority houses were built and it was watching Derek Hatton has done for 15 years and regularly recently suggested that Liverpool’s as he works up a sweat submits his body to a ‘full Bupa MoT’. council tax payers are still paying for at Total Fitness, in Al- The only trigger he can identify for them. trincham. his fanatical fitness regime was hav- Only two years after taking office, This is where you’ll ing his mum die on the operating ta- Hatton and his council were de- findA him four times a week, usually be- ble during a heart bypass operation nounced from the stage of the Labour fore breakfast because it puts him in a because she had a faulty valve which Party conference, where Neil Kin- ‘winning mood’ for the rest of the day. could have been detected. nock condemned the declarations of He takes on a punch bag, then at- “I’m going to be the first person in ‘far-fetched resolutions’ and spoke of tacks a treadmill and set of weights. the history of the universe who the ‘grotesque chaos’ of a Labour He stops to explain the filming is doesn’t die,” he winks. council ‘hiring taxis to scut- timed to coincide with his 61st… and He’s been living in Bow- ‘If it was 1983 tle around a city handing out I’m staggered. His muscular frame don, rather than Merseyside, redundancy notices to its and taut face belie his years and he for the last three years but again now, I own workers’. still has that cheeky boyish charm. doesn’t want to talk about wouldn’t do a Hatton was kicked out of “I’ve always been interested in fit- why because the ‘wounds are single thing Liverpool town hall and the ness but the older you get the more I still too painful’. Labour Party only three FIGHTING TALK Derek Hatton works out in the gym to keep a trim think you need it,” he says, stepping I assume he’s speaking of differently’ years after rising to power. » figure that belies his 61 years off the treadmill for a moment. the 2005 split from Shirley, In 1986 he was the subject I ask him whether he’s had work his wife of 34 years, who was last re- of lengthy police investigations and Theatre, in Ashton under Lyne. never really recovered from that,” he done and he admits to having had reg- ported to be living back in Wavertree. acquitted in two court cases: the first Proof that his campaigning career says. “It was different for Manchester ular Botox injections to remove a But he’s fiercely proud of his related to an alleged conspiracy to de- was only part of the colourful picture because it hadn’t solely relied on the crease in his forehead but nothing Scouse roots – he’s an Evertonian fraud Liverpool council in land deals; came when he got work as a presen- cotton trade. Manchester has else. Although when he helped a pal rather than a Liverpudlian – and is a the second to a charge that he tried to ter with Talk Radio and Century FM achieved great things.” promote a cosmetic surgery clinic passionate Toffees fan. He has four swindle an insurance company out of and hosted the Granada TV show But these days he’s far more of a near Prestbury a couple of years ago, children and eight grandchildren and £45,000 over the loss of a horsebox. Less Of The Old. There have been ru- capitalist than a socialist. He recently the talk then was of cheek implants he’s clearly very proud of them too. The investigations ruined three mours of a return to politics – either helped his son Ben, 28, establish the It isn’t easy to sum up Derek’s col- years of his life and sent his PR com- as a mayor of Liverpool or as MEP – web-design company Rippleffect, ourful 61 years – but here goes. pany, which he set up after the council but the closest he comes to delivering which he sold this time last year in a He was a fireman and member of debacle, into collapse. I ask him how rhetoric these days are when he ac- deal worth up to £5.8m. Fire Brigades’ Union before he first he feels when he looks back on his cepts a guest spot as a TV pundit. He also runs property development earned notoriety as a supporter of time in office at Liverpool council? His latest stint was on alongside company Morpheus Investments, , the group “F****** hell,” he replies. “That’s a Andrew Neil on The Daily Politics which is defying the credit crunch to branded “loony lefties” ‘who fought big one! If it was 1983 right now and I show – but claims not to have too build on the outskirts of a new golf against Thatcher’s government and got elected, I wouldn’t do a single much interest in the subject. course in Larnaca, . the Labour bureaucracy’s rejection of thing differently. ‘Yes’, he’d like to see Gordon Does hitting 61 mean he will sud- socialism’. “If things were as they are today, Brown re-elected. “He’s shown us all denly cease being controversial? He took office as the deputy leader then I probably wouldn’t. It was the during this (the global economic cri- “I’m still opinionated on most of Liverpool council on May 3, 1983. right thing to do at that time.” sis) how he’s been able to do the job,” things,” he winks. Once there, there was a blank re- After politics and PR he then be- he adds. And whose side are you on these fusal to set or adhere to the budgets came an after-dinner speaker. Closer to home, he concedes that days, Derek? He pauses, flexes those required by law. When the money ran He understands the value of noto- Liverpool could never have kept pace facial muscles: “I’m on my own side.” OUTSPOKEN Derek Hatton as a out, more was borrowed from a Swiss riety and in 1991 he played panto vil- with Manchester’s renaissance. » Inside Out is on BBC1 tomorrow at councillor in the 1980s bank. More than 5,000 new local au- lain King Rat at the Tameside “The docks fell quiet and Liverpool 7.30pm.