I was obese, says Labour chairman

· McCartney says he is lucky to be alive
· Return to public stage after heart bypass
"I was obese," admits Ian McCartney. It is an unusually frank statement about his previous medical state from the working-class, 5ft 1in Labour chairman as he prepares to chair the party's spring conference in Blackpool this weekend.

It will be his return to the public stage after a heart bypass and four months' hard recovery away from the frontline of politics. Indeed, he is more astonished by the medical journey he underwent during 2005 than by the political one he took to help Labour win a third term.

Having been an athletic young man who had never smoked, last autumn he found himself struggling for breath, 15 stone (95kg), and very lucky to be alive. "I could have died like Robin Cook, what happened to him should have happened to me. It was just about to."

Nor did he initially take the advice of doctors who told him he should not risk the stress of chairing last September's Brighton conference, where his nocturnal negotiating skills would put him under stresses that his wife, Ann, had also urged him not to risk.

An operation that involved stopping his heart was "quite frightening ... I know you are supposed not say that in public life. You are supposed to be tough, and all that."

Now looking sprightly and heading south towards 11 stone, he ascribes his heart condition to "two and a half years, seven days a week, trying get the party ready for the general election. I put it down to real tiredness and being seriously fat. I was obese, but it was more serious than that. You don't realise over the years just how much weight you put on. To be honest, it is only over the last four weeks, now I am less fat, that I realise how out of hand it was. It makes you realise how difficult it must be for people to deal with it, psychologically and emotionally. If you don't fit into size 12 or 14, you become the butt of jokes."

He will not preach lifestyle choices to other politicians, even to his close friend John Prescott. "I have just had a second chance for a new life, so I don't think I will risk telling John anything like that. I am not going to be insufferable."

No surprise, though, that the 54-year-old, who has been MP for Makerfield since 1987, will vote in favour of a total smoking ban in the Commons next week. "I represent a constituency which has one of the worst heart disease records - it is about lifestyle and poverty. We have recognised that the NHS has to come together to tackle poverty, individualise services, and help people like myself to make better, conscious decisions about their lifestyle. I have been gobsmacked about how much is available from the NHS once you make that decision."

Mr McCartney's driving purpose is not to discuss his own recovery, but how he wants to reinvigorate the Labour party in government. He is shaking up policy making so the party's national policy commissions can be involved in what he calls "real time issues". By that he means contemporary controversies such as the education white paper or welfare reform.

Mr McCartney also plans to renew the "Big Conversation" style of open-ended discussions with the public pioneered before the 2005 election - this time rebranded as "Let's Talk."

Finally, he thinks local constituency parties have to be given freedom to organise themselves locally in different ways. "There is no reason why a party in Glasgow has to be run on the same lines as Makerfield. If we want to be in government for a long time, we have got to sound like and be like local communities."

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