Ann Widdecombe
Encyclopedia
Ann Noreen Widdecombe (born 4 October 1947) is a former British Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 politician and has been a novelist since 2000. She is a Privy Councillor
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

 and was the Member of Parliament for Maidstone
Maidstone (UK Parliament constituency)
Maidstone was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The parliamentary borough of Maidstone returned two Members of Parliament from 1552 until 1885, when its representation was reduced to one member...

 from 1987 to 1997 and for Maidstone and The Weald from 1997 to 2010. She was a social conservative and a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship
Conservative Christian Fellowship
The Conservative Christian Fellowship is an organisation allied with the British Conservative Party, established in 1990 by Tim Montgomerie and Conservative MP David Burrowes whilst they were students at Exeter University....

. She retired from politics at the 2010 general election. Since 2002 she has also made numerous television and radio appearances, including as a television presenter. She is a convert from Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...

 to Roman Catholicism.

Early life

Born in Bath, Somerset, Widdecombe is the daughter of a Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 civil servant James Murray Widdecombe and Rita N Plummer. She attended the Royal Navy School in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, and a convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

 school in Bath. She then read Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 at Birmingham University and later attended Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Lady Margaret Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located at the end of Norham Gardens in north Oxford. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £34m....

, to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). She worked for Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....

 (1973–75) and then as an administrator at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

 (1975–87) before entering Parliament.

Councillor

From 1976 to 1978, Widdecombe was a councillor
Councillor
A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...

 for Runnymede District
Runnymede (borough)
Runnymede is a local government district with borough status in the English county of Surrey. It is a very prosperous part of the London commuter belt, with some of the most expensive housing in the United Kingdom outside of central London, such as the Wentworth Estate.Runnymede is entirely...

 in Surrey. She contested the seat of Burnley
Burnley (UK Parliament constituency)
Burnley is a borough constituency centred on the town of Burnley in Lancashire, which is represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

 in Lancashire in the 1979 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1979
The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...

 and then, against David Owen
David Owen
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen CH PC FRCP is a British politician.Owen served as British Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979, the youngest person in over forty years to hold the post; he co-authored the failed Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg peace plans offered during the Bosnian War...

, the Plymouth Devonport seat in the 1983 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1983
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...

.

Member of Parliament

She was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1987 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...

 as member for the constituency of Maidstone
Maidstone (UK Parliament constituency)
Maidstone was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The parliamentary borough of Maidstone returned two Members of Parliament from 1552 until 1885, when its representation was reduced to one member...

 (which became Maidstone and The Weald in 1997).

Political views

As an MP Widdecombe has expressed conservative views, including opposition to abortion; it was understood during her time in frontline politics that she would not become Health Secretary
Secretary of State for Health
Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and...

 as long as this involved responsibility for abortions. Although a committed Christian, she has characterised the issue as one of life and death on which her view had been the same when she was agnostic. Along with John Gummer
John Gummer
John Selwyn Gummer, Baron Deben, PC is a British Conservative Party politician, formerly Member of Parliament for Suffolk Coastal, now a member of the House of Lords. He is Chairman of the environmental consultancy company Sancroft International and Chairman of Veolia Water...

 MP, she converted from the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 to the Roman Catholic Church following the decision of the Church of England on the Ordination of women
Ordination of women
Ordination in general religious usage is the process by which a person is consecrated . The ordination of women is a regular practice among some major religious groups, as it was of several religions of antiquity...

 as priests. In her speech at the 2000 Conservative conference, she called for a zero tolerance
Zero tolerance
Zero tolerance imposes automatic punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct. Zero-tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are...

 policy of prosecution, albeit with only £100 fines as the punishment, for users of cannabis
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...

. This was well-received by rank-and-file Conservative delegates.

In 2003, together with fellow Roman Catholic MP Edward Leigh
Edward Leigh
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh is a British Conservative politician. He has sat in the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Gainsborough in Lincolnshire since 1997, and for its predecessor constituency of Gainsborough and Horncastle between 1983 and 1997...

, Widdecombe proposed an amendment opposing repeal of Section 28
Section 28
Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 caused the controversial addition of Section 2A to the Local Government Act 1986 , enacted on 24 May 1988 and repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland, and on 18 November 2003 in the rest of Great Britain by section 122 of the Local Government Act 2003...

 of the Local Government Act
Local Government Act 1988
The United Kingdom Local Government Act of 1988 was famous for introducing the controversial Section 28 into law. In terms of the section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, Local Authorities were prohibited from promoting in specified category of schools, "the teaching of the acceptability of...

, which banned the promotion of homosexuality by local governments. Out of the 17 parliamentary votes considered by the Public Whip
Public Whip
The Public Whip is a parliamentary informatics project that analyses and publishes the voting history of MPs in the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

 website to concern equal rights for homosexuals, Widdecombe took the opposing position in 15 cases, not being present at the other two votes.

She is a committed animal lover and one of the few Conservative MPs to have consistently voted for the ban on fox hunting
Fox hunting
Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in its current...

.

She has expressed a variety of views on climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

 but has been opposed to legislation reducing emissions. Her views on the subject appear to have hardened over time. In 2007, she wrote that she did not want to belittle the issue but was sceptical of the claims that specific actions would prevent catastrophe, then in 2008 that her doubts had been “crystalised” by Nigel Lawson's book An Appeal to Reason, before stating in 2009 that "There is no climate change, hasn’t anybody looked out of their window recently?"

Over the years, Widdecombe has expressed her support for a reintroduction of the death penalty, which was abolished in the UK in 1965. She notably spoke of her support for its reintroduction for the worst cases of murder in the aftermath of the murder of two 10-year-old girls
Soham murders
The Soham murders was an English murder case in 2002 of two 10-year-old girls in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire.The victims were Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Aimee Chapman...

 from Soham
Soham
Soham is a small town in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It lies just off the A142 between Ely and Newmarket . Its population is 9,102 , and it is within the district of East Cambridgeshire.-Archaeology:...

, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002. She supported the argument that the death penalty would have deterrent value, as within five years of its abolition the national murder rate had more than doubled.

In government

Widdecombe joined John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...

's government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
A Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the government of the United Kingdom, junior to both a Minister of State and a Secretary of State....

 for Social Security in 1990. In 1993, she was moved to the Department of Employment, and she was promoted to Minister of State
Minister of State
Minister of State is a title borne by politicians or officials in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a "minister of state" is a junior minister, who is assigned to assist a specific cabinet minister...

 the following year. In 1995, she joined the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 as Minister of State for Prisons and visited every prison in Britain.

Shadow Cabinet

After the fall of the Conservative government to Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 in 1997, she served as Shadow Health Secretary
Shadow Secretary of State for Health
The Shadow Secretary of State for Health is an office within British politics held by a member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. The duty of the office holder is to scrutinise the actions of the government's Secretary of State for Health and develop alternative policies. The office holder is a...

 between 1998 and 1999 and later as Shadow Home Secretary
Shadow Home Secretary
In British politics, the Shadow Home Secretary is the person within the shadow cabinet who 'shadows' the Home Secretary; this effectively means scrutinising government policy on home affairs including policing, national security, immigration, the criminal justice system, the prison service, and...

 between 1999 and 2001 under William Hague
William Hague
William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

.

Leadership contest and backbenches

During the 2001 Conservative leadership election
Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2001
The 2001 Conservative leadership election was held after the United Kingdom Conservative Party failed to make inroads into the Labour government's lead in the 2001 general election. Party leader William Hague resigned, and a leadership contest was called under new rules Hague had introduced...

, she could not find sufficient support amongst Conservative MPs for her leadership candidacy. She first supported Michael Ancram
Michael Ancram
Michael Andrew Foster Jude Kerr, 13th Marquess of Lothian, PC, QC , known as Michael Ancram, is a United Kingdom Conservative Party politician. He is a member of the House of Lords, former Member of Parliament, and a former member of the Shadow Cabinet...

, who was eliminated in the first round, and then Kenneth Clarke
Kenneth Clarke
Kenneth Harry "Ken" Clarke, QC, MP is a British Conservative politician, currently Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. He was first elected to Parliament in 1970; and appointed a minister in Edward Heath's government, in 1972, and is one of...

, who lost in the final round. She afterwards declined to serve in Iain Duncan Smith's Shadow Cabinet (although she indicated on the television programme When Louis Met..., prior to the leadership contest, that she wished to retire to the backbenches anyway).

In the 2005 leadership election
Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2005
The 2005 Conservative leadership election was called by party leader Michael Howard on 6 May 2005, when he announced that he would be stepping down as leader in the near future. However, he stated that he would not depart until a review of the rules for the leadership election had been conducted,...

, she initially supported Kenneth Clarke again. Once he was eliminated, she turned support towards Liam Fox
Liam Fox
Liam Fox MP is a British Conservative politician, Member of Parliament for North Somerset, and former Secretary of State for Defence....

. Following Fox's subsequent elimination, she took time to reflect before finally declaring for David Davis
David Davis (British politician)
David Michael Davis is a British Conservative Party politician who is the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden...

. She expressed reservations over the eventual winner David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

, feeling that he did not, like the other candidates, have a proven track record, and she was later a leading figure in parliamentary opposition to his A-List policy, which she has said is "an insult to women". At the October 2006 Conservative Conference, she was Chief Dragon in a political version of the television programme Dragons' Den
Dragons' Den
Dragons' Den is a series of reality television programmes featuring entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas in order to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists. The show originated in Japan as "Manē no Tora"...

, in which A-list candidates were invited to put forward a policy proposal, which was then torn apart by her team of Rachel Elnaugh
Rachel Elnaugh
Rachel Elnaugh is a British entrepreneur, who came to prominence as an investor on the first two seasons of BBC Two's TV show Dragons' Den, in which hers was the sole female perspective alongside four male entrepreneurs known as the Dragons.-Early life:Her family lived above her father's...

, Oliver Letwin
Oliver Letwin
Oliver Letwin MP FRSA is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he is currently the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, and a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of West Dorset...

 and Michael Brown
Michael Brown (UK politician)
Michael Russell Brown is a British former Conservative Party politician and is now a newspaper and broadcast political journalist. He was a Member of Parliament from 1979 to 1997.-Biography:...

.

In an interview with Metro
Metro (Associated Metro Limited)
Metro is a free daily newspaper in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd . It is available from Monday to Friday each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.-History:The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres...

 in September 2006 she stated that if Parliament were of a normal length, it was likely she would retire at the next general election. She confirmed her intention to stand down to The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

s Pendennis diary in September 2007, and again in October 2007 after Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 quashed speculation of an autumn 2007 general election.

Widdecombe was one of the 98 MPs who voted to keep their expense details secret. When the expenses claims were leaked
United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal triggered by the leak and subsequent publication by the Telegraph Group in 2009 of expense claims made by members of the United Kingdom Parliament over several years...

, however, Widdecombe was described by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 as one of the "saints" amongst all MPs.

In May 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin
Michael Martin (politician)
Michael John Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn, PC is a British politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Glasgow Springburn from 1979 to 2005, and then for Glasgow North East until 2009...

 as Speaker of the House of Commons
Speaker of the British House of Commons
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin...

, it was reported that Widdecombe was gathering support for election as interim Speaker until the next general election. On 11 June 2009, she confirmed her bid to be the Speaker. She made it through to the second ballot but came last and was eliminated.

Widdecombe retired from politics at the 2010 general election.

Recognition

Widdecombe was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury Christ Church University is a university in Canterbury, Kent, England. Founded as a Church of England college for teaching training it has grown to full university status and will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2012. The focus of its work is in the education of people going into...

 at a ceremony held at Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....

 on 30 January 2009.

Personal life and family

Until her retirement at the 2010 general election, Widdecombe divided her time between her two homes – one in London and one in the village of Sutton Valence
Sutton Valence
Sutton Valence is a village some five miles SE of Maidstone, Kent, England on the Greensand Ridge overlooking the Vale of Kent and Weald. One of the main landmarks in the village is , of which only the ruins of the 12th century keep remain, under the ownership of English Heritage, open any...

, Kent, in her constituency. She sold both of these properties, however, upon deciding to retire at the next general election. She shared her home in London with her widowed mother, Rita Widdecombe, until Rita's death, on 1 May 2007, aged 95. In March 2008, she purchased a house in Haytor, on Dartmoor
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...

 in Devon, to where she has now retired. Her brother, Malcolm (1937–2010), who was an Anglican Canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 in Bristol, retired in May 2009 and died of metastatic
Metastasis
Metastasis, or metastatic disease , is the spread of a disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part. It was previously thought that only malignant tumor cells and infections have the capacity to metastasize; however, this is being reconsidered due to new research...

 oesophageal cancer on 12 October 2010. Her nephew, Rev Roger Widdecombe, is an Anglican priest.

She has never married nor had any children. In November 2007 on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 she described how a journalist once produced a profile on her with the assumption that she had had at least "one sexual relationship", to which Widdecombe replied: "Be careful, that's the way you get sued". When interviewer Jenni Murray
Jenni Murray
Dame Jennifer Susan "Jenni" Murray, DBE is a British journalist and broadcaster. She attended Barnsley Girls High School and has a degree in French and Drama from Hull University...

 asked if she had ever had a sexual relationship, Widdecombe laughed "it's nobody else's business".

Religious views

Widdecombe is a practising Roman Catholic, a denomination of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 to which she converted in 1993 after leaving the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. Her reasons for leaving the latter were many, as she explained to reporters from the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

:
I left the Church of England because there was a huge bundle of straw. The ordination of women was the last straw, but it was only one of many. For years I had been disillusioned by the Church of England's compromising on everything. The Catholic Church doesn't care if something is unpopular.


She recently turned down an offer to be Britain's next ambassador to the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

, being prevented from accepting by suffering a detached retina.

Controversies

In 1990, following the assassination of the Conservative politician Ian Gow
Ian Gow
Ian Reginald Edward Gow TD was a British Conservative politician and solicitor. While serving as Member of Parliament for Eastbourne, he was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army who exploded a bomb under his car outside his home in East Sussex.-Life:Ian Gow was born at 3 Upper...

 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...

 (IRA), the Eastbourne by-election
Eastbourne by-election, 1990
The Eastbourne by-election, 1990 was a by-election held on 18 October 1990 for the British House of Commons constituency of Eastbourne in East Sussex....

 for his seat in the House of Commons was won by the Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...

 David Bellotti
David Bellotti
David Frank Bellotti is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom who was Member of Parliament for the Eastbourne constituency from 1990 to 1992....

. Upon the announcement, Widdecombe told the voters that the IRA would be "toasting their success".

In 1996, Widdecombe, as prisons minister, defended the Government's policy to shackle pregnant prisoners with handcuffs and chains when in hospital. Widdecombe told the Commons the restrictions were needed to prevent prisoners from escaping. "Some MPs may like to think that a pregnant woman would not or could not escape. Unfortunately this is not true. The fact is that hospitals are not secure places in which to keep prisoners, and since 1990, 20 women have escaped from hospitals"

In 1997, during the Conservative leadership election of William Hague
William Hague
William Jefferson Hague is the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State. He served as Leader of the Conservative Party from June 1997 to September 2001...

, Widdecombe spoke out against Michael Howard
Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, QC, PC is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005...

, under whom she had served when he was Home Secretary. She famously remarked "there is something of the night about him". The remark was considered to be extremely damaging to Howard, who was frequently satirised as a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

 thereafter. He came last in the poll. Howard went on to become party leader in 2003, however, and Widdecombe then stated, "I explained fully what my objections were in 1997 and I do not retract anything I said then. But this is 2005 and we have to look to the future and not the past."

In 2001, when Michael Portillo
Michael Portillo
Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative Party politician and Cabinet Minister...

 was running for leader of the Conservative Party, Widdecombe described him and his allies as "backbiters". She went on to say that, should he be appointed leader, she would never give him her allegiance.

Media work and appearances

In 2002, she took part in the ITV programme Celebrity Fit Club. Also in 2002 she took part in a Louis Theroux
Louis Theroux
Louis Sebastian Theroux is an English broadcaster best known for his Gonzo style journalism on the television series Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met.... His career started off in journalism and bears influences of notable writers in his family such as his father, Paul Theroux and...

 television documentary, depicting her life, both in and out of politics. In March 2004 she briefly became The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 newspaper's agony aunt, introduced with an Emma Brockes
Emma Brockes
Emma Brockes is a British author and journalist for The Guardian newspaper. She lives in New York.Brockes graduated in 1997 with a first from St Edmund Hall, Oxford University where she was editor of the student newspaper Cherwell and won the Philip Geddes prize for journalism...

 interview. In 2005 BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 showed six episodes of The Widdecombe Project, an agony aunt television programme. In 2005, she appeared in a new series of Celebrity Fit Club, but this time as a panel member dispensing wisdom and advice to the celebrities taking part. Also in 2005, she presented the show Ann Widdecombe to the Rescue in which she acted as an agony aunt, dispensing no-nonsense advice to disputing families, couples, and others across the UK. In 2005, she also appeared in a discussion programme on Five to discuss who had been England's greatest monarch since the Norman Conquest; her choice of monarch was Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

.

She was the guest host of news quiz Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been broadcast since 1990, currently the BBC's longest-ever running television panel show...

 twice, in 2006 and 2007. Following her second appearance, Widdecombe vowed she would never appear on the show again because of comments made by panellist Jimmy Carr
Jimmy Carr
James Anthony Patrick "Jimmy" Carr is an English-Irish comedian and humourist. He is known for his deadpan delivery and dark humour. He is also a writer, actor and presenter of radio and television....

. She wrote, "His idea of wit is a barrage of filth and the sort of humour most men grow out of in their teens.... [T]here's no amount of money for which I would go through those two recording hours again. At one stage I nearly walked out." She did, however, stand by her appraisal of regular panellists Ian Hislop
Ian Hislop
Ian David Hislop is a British journalist, satirist, comedian, writer, broadcaster and editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye...

 and Paul Merton
Paul Merton
Paul Merton is a British comedian, writer, actor and television presenter. Known for his improvisation skill, his humour is rooted in deadpan, surreal and sometimes dark comedy...

, whom she has called "the fastest wits in showbusiness".

She awarded the 2007 University Challenge
University Challenge
University Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....

 trophy. In the same year, she was cast as herself in "The Sound of Drums", the 12th episode of the third series of the science-fiction drama Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

 supporting Mr Saxon, the alias of the Master
Master (Doctor Who)
The Master is a recurring character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is a renegade Time Lord and the archenemy of the Doctor....

.

Since 2007, Widdecombe has fronted a television series called Ann Widdecombe Versus, on ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...

, in which she speaks to various people about things related to her as an MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

, with an emphasis on confronting those responsible for problems she wished to tackle. On 15 August 2007 she talked about prostitution, the next week about benefits and the week after that about truancy
Truancy
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions...

. A fourth episode was screened on 18 September 2008 in which she travelled around London and Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 talking to girl gangs.

In October 2010, she appeared on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

's Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...

, partnered by Anton du Beke
Anton du Beke
Anton du Beke is a British ballroom dancer and television presenter. His professional dance partner since 1997 has been Erin Boag. With Boag, he won the IDTA Classic in England in November 2003.-Family and early life:...

, winning the support of some viewers despite low marks from the judges. After nine weeks of routines strongly flavoured by comedy the couple had received enough support in the public vote to stay in the contest. Widdecombe was eliminated from the competition on Sunday 5 December after the public vote had been combined with the judges' score; she was with Scott Maslen
Scott Maslen
Scott Alexander Maslen is an English actor and model, best known for his portrayal as DS Phil Hunter in ITV's The Bill and now Jack Branning on the BBC's flagship soap EastEnders.-Early and personal life:...

 of EastEnders in the bottom two.

Widdecombe is currently filming a new quiz show with herself as questionmaster, for the Sky Atlantic
Sky Atlantic
Sky Atlantic is a television channel owned by British Sky Broadcasting, which launched on 1 February 2011 on Sky in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland....

 channel, called Cleverdicks. The show is to be shown in 30 one-hour episodes in an initial series, starting 2012. It will feature four contestants, usually high quality members of the UK national quiz circuit and will end with a money round for the winner of each show.

Other interests

Her non-political accomplishments include being a popular novelist. Widdecombe also currently writes a weekly column for the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

.

In October 2006, she pledged to boycott British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...

 for suspending a worker who refused to hide her cross
Christian cross
The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity...

. The matter was resolved when the company reversed the suspension. In November 2006, she moved into the house of an Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

 Labour Councillor to experience life on a council estate, her response to her experience being "Five years ago I made a speech in the House of Commons about the forgotten decents. I have spent the last week on estates in the Islington area finding out that they are still forgotten".

In January 2011 Widdecombe was joint President of the North of England Education Conference
North of England Education Conference
The North of England Education Conference is the UK’s biggest annual education conference. The first Conference took place in Manchester in 1903...

 in Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...

. She shared the responsibility with a young person from the town. She has also become a patron of The Grace Charity for M.E.

Fiction

  • 2000: The Clematis Tree. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0-297-64572-2
  • 2002: An Act of Treachery. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0-297-64573-0
  • 2005: Father Figure. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0-297-82962-9
  • 2005: An Act of Peace. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0-297-82958-0

Non-fiction

  • '1999: Inspired and Outspoken: the collected speeches of Ann Widdecombe; edited by John Simmons, with a biographical preface by Nick Kochan. London: Politico's Publishing ISBN 1-902301-22-6
  • 2000: Kochan, Nicholas Ann Widdecombe: right from the beginning. London: Politico's Publishing ISBN 1-902301-55-2


External links


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