THE pictures of the Prime Minister in Dover last Friday, and the film footage of him defending his stance about the Attorney-General’s advice on the legality of the Iraq war illustrated Harold Wilson’s comment that a week in politics is a long time.

The election has coincided with such an increase in the Blair weight that his suit was stretched tightly across his back and he moved with the rolling gait of a rugby football trainer walking out on to the pitch to talk to his team.

Before his minor cardiac surgery last October Tony Blair looked abnormally and unhealthily thin and drawn. By the start of the election campaign he had recovered his composure and his weight was back to normal for his height and age.

Last weekend he appeared to be so well covered that there can’t have been many people watching television who didn’t wonder if the Prime Minister wasn’t wearing some protective waistcoat beneath his shirt. This is denied.

The official explanation from aides is that Mr Blair has put on a few pounds because he no longer has time for exercise in the gym. A more likely one is that without the reassurance provided by the framework of his normal routine he is resorting to comfort eating.

As he is travelling it is likely that he is taking calorie-dense convenience foods and may even be finding it impossible to refuse the occasional drink or two with political cronies and influential supporters.

An expanding waistline — politely referred to by doctors as central obesity — may easily be caused by alcohol as by lack of exercise. Even three bottles of lager and two generous glasses of wine and it’s easy to clock up 1,000 calories in an evening.

Finding the time to sit down to enjoy organically grown fruit, vegetables and salads, as recommended by his advisers and the Department of Health, is as time consuming as weightlifting and wall-bar work in the gym.

There is life after the election and Mr Blair would be well advised to look after his general health. Although there is every expectation that the procedure to ablate the aberrant pathway that was interfering with the normal conduction system of the heart, and hence the heart’s rhythm, has cured the problem, there is little to be gained by testing the effectiveness of the minor surgery by becoming overweight.

An increase in weight has an apparently disproportionate effect on the load put on the heart. Nor is it helpful to allow weight to see-saw.

Rapid weight gain followed by rapid weight loss upsets the insulin balance and can lead to metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. This is probably what happened to Christina Onassis, who was only in her forties when she died.

It is not only Mr Blair’s weight that has changed since last week.

The Prime Minister’s facial expression has reverted to one of tension, his voice is more agitated with more obvious stagey pauses in his speech broken by staccato, but quick-fire, passages. His gestures are also more prolific and histrionic.

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