47st man said he’d do ‘anything’ to lose weight… but gave up because it was too hard

BRITAIN’S “fattest man” Jason Holton says he’ll die if he isn’t prescribed slimming jabs on the NHS.

“It’s a timebomb now. I know I’ve got to try something,” says the 33-year-old, who is currently 47st.

Hmmm.

Jason, who eats 10,000 calories a day, was previously funded by the NHS for a month- long stay in a private care home (not much change out of £10k, I would imagine) where staff put him on a restricted diet and limited his smoking.

He dropped three stone in a month and you’d imagine he’d be thankful.

But he complained that the lack of freedom was a breach of his human rights and now refuses to return.

So in other words, he did “try something” but bailed out because, “I had no freedom, I was their prisoner”.

The freedom he refers to, one assumes, is to eat and smoke as much as he likes while bed-ridden at the specially adapted bungalow in Hampshire where mum Leisa is his main carer.

“I have an addictive personality and I don’t have much else to do all day,” he says in mitigation of his excessive food intake and 20-a-day smoking habit.

That may be, but where does personal responsibility come in?

After all, Jason was given help by the NHS and it was starting to work.

But like the experts always say, treatment only works if addicts accept they have a problem and put in the effort to break the cycle of whatever’s destroying them.

Sure, the Wegovy appetite-suppressant jabs Jason wants will hopefully help him lose weight without the hard graft required to do it the traditional way.

Equally, getting him to a weight that alleviates the pressure on his vital organs and allows him to actually leave the house will help save the already overburdened NHS a small fortune.

But these injections are only meant to be a short-term measure that puts someone on the path to a healthier weight that they can then maintain themselves through diet and exercise.

So, if the psychological reasons behind why Jason overeats aren’t addressed, then it’s fair to assume that he will have to stay on Wegovy for the rest of his life in case its withdrawal means he rapidly returns to his old habits, including drinking three litres of fruit juice a day.

Winched out

That’s 300g of sugar — ten times the NHS recommended intake.

At his worst in 2020, Jason was 50st and had to be winched out of his mother’s flat in Surrey from a top-floor window.

Now he says he would “do anything to get out of bed and start walking again”.

Anything, that is, except return to the care home where he started to lose weight the hard, old-fashioned way.

So as the jabs will hopefully save his life, then chances are the NHS will eventually stump up the cash.

In the meantime, perhaps Jason could use the money he currently spends on cigarettes and excessive food to pay for them himself?

BRITISH Airways has launched its new androgynous crew uniforms amid much fanfare.

They can wear unicorn onesies as far as I’m concerned . . . as long as the flight takes off on time.

Flor in the argument about Eve

“THERE’S something very uncomfortable about watching Bono’s daughter playing a working-class, single mother from The Flats,” says Irish actor Joseph McGucken about Eve Hewson’s critically acclaimed performance in new movie Flora And Son.

Did he express similar concern about Essex girl Michelle Dockery playing crashing snob Lady Mary in Downton Abbey?

BEEFEATER Simon Towe was shocked to be hit with an extra £200 on his car insurance when he moved from a Leicestershire village to the secure compound of the Tower of London, where it would be virtually impossible to steal his motor.

Ah, but it’s when you leave the tower that matters, Simon.

In Leicestershire, one doubts you had to contend with zillions of “learner” delivery mopeds zig-zagging in front of your car, or drunken revellers who think it’s a great idea to cycle home in the dark on a rental bike with one pedal and a flat tyre.

Trust me, it’s hazardous out there.

System is flat broke

NEW flat rentals are attracting queues of wannabe tenants – most of whom leave disappointed when someone outbids them.

It’s unsustainable.

And one of the causes can be summed up by a question I read in The Sunday Times at the weekend from a private landlord.

He mentioned “anti-landlord rhetoric” and asked property experts Rob Dix and Rob Bence whether he should sell up now.

Part of their reply was: “Any changes that could be perceived as landlord-friendly will look bad politically, so it’s unlikely that much will happen before the next election.”

It’s true, but when and why did private landlords become so demonised?

Yes, there are bad ’uns.

However, the majority are decent folk who, encouraged by previous administrations, put money in to buy-to-lets as a form of pension and treat their tenants with respect.

But following the rumblings of costly regulations and yet more state interference, many are understandably saying “sod this” and selling up to first-time buyers.

Which leaves their long-term tenants desperately seeking somewhere new to live and, thanks to low council accommodation stock, a potentially serious housing crisis on our hands.

So well done everyone.

Political short-termism in action, with zero regard for the long-term effect.

Roten yolk

WHEN 59-year-old Alissa Ash had an argument with her 89-year-old mother, she broke a box of eggs by throwing them on the floor.

Surrey police were called to “calm” the situation, she refused to accept a caution and found herself at Guildford Magistrates’ Court charged with criminal damage.

After a case that cost the taxpayer around £1k, the magistrate said he was “struggling” to find any criminality and gave her an absolute discharge.

Even her mother said the case was “a waste of time”.

Meanwhile, thieves all over the country are blithely shoplifting from supermarkets with impunity and people are tracing their own stolen cars via neighbourhood apps because the police say they’re too busy to help.

Common sense has truly left the building.

This is your strife

MANY years ago, I spotted TV’s This Is Your Life legend Michael Aspel at our local tip and wryly commented on this very page: “Perhaps he was dumping another wife.”

After all, he’d had three failed marriages behind him and had recently started dating Irene Clarke, a production assistant on his hit show with whom he still lives.

But now he’s been reflecting on his past and says he’s “full of regrets” after leaving his wives Dian Sessions, Ann Reed and Elizabeth Power who, between them, gave him six children.

“Sometimes I wake up in the night and sit bolt upright and think, ‘It was utter madness’,” he confesses.

“I can’t find excuses. I just felt this awful need to wriggle out of my marriages.

“To have done it three times must be a flaw in my personality.”

Good for him for admitting his mistakes.

Now 90, it proves that you’re never too old to reflect and self-analyse.

Cold truth

THE band Travis once warbled: “Why does it always rain on me?”

“Because you’re Scottish?” might be the obvious answer.

Whilst the south was basking in glorious, 25 centigrade sunshine at the weekend, a friend messaged me from Glasgow with a photo of grey skies and torrential rain, while mudslides cut off roads in Argyll and Bute.

North-South divide indeed.

But you know what? When the bleak midwinter comes, the north will always have the last laugh.

This weather warning may be tongue-in-cheek, but it’s the cold, hard truth.

TONY and Cherie Blair have won a two-year planning dispute with a conservation charity to extend a guest house on their Grade l listed mansion in Buckinghamshire.

The house is part of their £35million property empire which includes 39 houses and flats.

Ain’t socialism grand?

TORY peer Lord Frost’s suggestion that the state pension age should be raised to 75 is perhaps an option if you work in an office.

But what if you’re a roofer, lumberjack, shipbuilder, train driver, or any other job that requires manual labour and acute concentration in all weathers?

Not everyone has a physically undemanding job like, say, sitting in the House of Lords.