Keir Starmer has opened up about his mother's battle with a rare form of arthritis which left her unable to move or sleep.
In an emotional interview on Loose Women, the Labour leader said one of his great regrets was that his children never got a chance to really get to know his mum Josephine.
His mother lived with Still’s Disease for more than 50 years, a rare form of inflammatory arthritis which causes painful swelling of joints and organs.
She died only weeks before he was sworn in as an MP in 2015 and never got to see him in office.
Mr Starmer, who was only 11 when his mum was diagnosed, said: "It was very aggressive and anybody with arthritis will know just how debilitating it was.
"The combined effect of the arthritis which was you know, having a terrible effect on the joints was also that the steroid whilst helping and giving my mum at least have like she didn't think she would have was also having a brutal impact on her because it made her skin sort of tissue like it couldn't.
"And her bones became very, very weak and almost like Weetabix and towards the end of her life.
"She fell and there was nothing that could be done with her limbs.
"She had to have a leg amputated. And in the last few years of her life, she couldn't move, she couldn't eat. She couldn't sleep."
Mr Starmer added: "One of my big regrets in life is that our children never got the chance to know my mum because by the time they saw her she was unable to move."
The Labour leader was also grilled about his future after he vowed to resign if he was fined by the police over so-called Beergate.
"I have said that if the police do issue a fixed-penalty notice I will do the right thing and I will step down", he said.
"I have put everything on the line because I think that that is the right thing to do.
"That is the complete opposite to the Prime Minister."
