Labour leadership race: MP Tom Watson enters home straight of deputy campaign

The ballot closes tomorrow and the five rivals for the post will know their fate on Saturday.

Mr Watson, who has represented West Bromwich East in Parliament since 2001 and is regarded as the favourite, revealed: "Thousands of people have signed up for the campaign. I have had a very good response from Labour Party members all over the country.

"It has been like a non stop tour round the UK. I have only had two nights at home since early April when the General Election campaign started."

That ended in the worst defeat for the Labour party since 1987 and launched the search for both a new leader and deputy leader.

Mr Watson said: "I have stayed in over 70 Premier Inns - I think I know the brand better than Lenny Henry. It feels like I have spoken to every one of the 600,000 people eligible to vote but, of course, I have not and therefore do not know what the result will be."

He regards the deputy leadership race as having been less acrimonious than the battle for the top job and reckons both campaigns were too long.

The 48-year-old explained: "I am very strongly in favour of the members being at the centre of the process but I am not sure the period of time it has taken was very helpful to the Party. It only took nine weeks to elect Tony Blair as leader.

"The final decision on how this is handled in future is one for our national election committee but I hope they will bear in mind that having their future leaders on the road for 18 or 19 weeks has consequences such as failing to call the Government to account.

"There are a whole host of pledges made by the Tories during the General Election that have since been broken but the public are not aware of this because the main opposition has been focussing on internal matters.

"However, whatever criticism people make of the process you cannot just say it was a box ticking exercise. Nine candidates - four for the leadership and five for the deputy - have been traipsing round the country talking to hundreds of thousands of people. The days of command and control from the centre have gone."

Mr Watson was speaking after addressing the 114th - and final - meeting of his campaign which he insisted was held in the Black Country.

He gave a rousing address to the audience at St Pauls Community and Learning Centre in Hawbush Road, Brierley Hill during which he did not reveal who his choice of leader but maintained: "The leadership contest is not a choice between good and bad. It is a choice between different types of good. Whoever is chosen has got to reconnect with millions of voters."

Mr Watson called for a digital revolution within the Labour Party as well as better broadband links for the entire country. He said the party needed to 'recast' their relationship with small business and sole traders

He also backed the living wage, ending zero hours contracts, saying yes to continued EU membership and defeating plans to take power from trade unions before concluding: "I want a party that is radical, bold, imaginative, questioning and brave."

Among those at the meeting was Ian Austin, the Labour MP for Dudley North, who forecast: "It will be fantastic to have somebody from the Black Country as deputy leader of the Labour Party. He will rebuild the Party and revolutionise our campaigning."

Mr Watson is up against Stella Creasy, Caroline Flint, Angela Eagle and Ben Bradshaw for the deputy leadership.

The main leadership is expected to be won by leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn.