:00:39. > :00:43.I have come to Dartmoor, in Devon, a place full of folklore and legend.
:00:43. > :00:47.It is a beautiful place to blow away the cobwebs. But what sort of
:00:47. > :00:53.person would choose to live here? You would have to be very tough,
:00:53. > :00:58.rather resilient, a bit like a Dartmoor pony. I have come to meet
:00:58. > :01:05.one woman who has left the cut and thrust of politics to retire here.
:01:05. > :01:12.She has been described as being similar to an Albanian librarian.
:01:12. > :01:19.She's charming, she's tough, and I think she's more than a little
:01:19. > :01:29.vulnerable. I would some her up as a complete bundle of joy. She's
:01:29. > :01:36.
:01:36. > :01:46.lovely. Ann Widdecombe, that's who we have come to see! I think she
:01:46. > :01:48.
:01:48. > :01:58.wants to be loved. I described her as a deathwatch beetle, because she
:01:58. > :02:04.
:02:04. > :02:10.could beaten around the House of By day, I'm the Shadow Home
:02:10. > :02:20.Secretary. Deep down, there's so much more to me... There is a
:02:20. > :02:21.
:02:21. > :02:31.softer side to her, if you get to know her. I'm succulent. Yes, you
:02:31. > :02:46.
:02:46. > :02:50.are. But exactly, who is the multi- The best way to meet Ann these days
:02:50. > :02:57.is to put on a pair of walking boots and rub up against the
:02:57. > :03:01.Dartmoor winds. Have you been craving this after London? Yes, I
:03:01. > :03:06.have been craving this for several years. I have always known this was
:03:06. > :03:10.where I was going to retire, although I did, at the last moment,
:03:10. > :03:16.have a very small wobble towards the north-west Highlands. But I do
:03:16. > :03:21.not like midges. You do not get so many of those here! My father was
:03:21. > :03:25.born in Cornwall, my mother in Devon. And we used to visit the
:03:25. > :03:33.family a lot here. So, I was walking on the moors when I was
:03:33. > :03:39.about 12 or 13. I think that is where it all began. You can walk
:03:39. > :03:46.here, and you really can walk all day and not see another soul.
:03:46. > :03:51.you good with your own company? vastly prefer my own company, I
:03:51. > :03:55.always have. That does not make me anti-social, I do like my friends,
:03:55. > :04:05.they come down and visit. I wonder whether you could put us up just
:04:05. > :04:10.for a cup of tea? You would be more than welcome. Ann, thank you, to be
:04:10. > :04:14.sitting in your lovely library. You gave your house this name... I did
:04:15. > :04:21.indeed, and of course everybody thinks it means retirement, but
:04:21. > :04:25.what it actually means, is the rest of my life. So, Ann Widdecombe,
:04:25. > :04:30.retired MP - what does the future hold? I do not know what I'm going
:04:30. > :04:35.to do, and that's the great joy of retirement. If you had said to me
:04:35. > :04:45.one year ago, this is what's going to happen, you're going to be
:04:45. > :04:49.
:04:49. > :04:59.dancing on prime-time television... Then you're going to be touring the
:04:59. > :05:03.
:05:03. > :05:13.country, playing venues like I would have said, have an aspirin,
:05:13. > :05:30.
:05:30. > :05:34.Ann Widdecombe was born in Bath in 1947. Britain was in the grip of
:05:34. > :05:42.austerity following six years of war. But the mood was one of relief
:05:42. > :05:48.and hope for the future. Ann's father was working as a civil
:05:48. > :05:54.servant in the Ministry of Defence. His wife was a full-time mother to
:05:54. > :06:04.Ann and her brother Malcolm. They were a very traditional English
:06:04. > :06:05.
:06:05. > :06:15.family. The father was a real professional, a very gifted, able
:06:15. > :06:23.man, totally dedicated to his job. The mother was a totally dutiful,
:06:23. > :06:28.loving, conventional lady, of great warmth and humanity. Ann had a
:06:28. > :06:33.brother, Malcolm, a pre-war baby 10 years her senior, who was destined
:06:33. > :06:39.to become a vicar in the Church of England. Father, we thank you for
:06:39. > :06:42.this food... Malcolm is now nearly 40, he lives with his wife and
:06:42. > :06:52.their three small children in a vicarage, three miles from the
:06:52. > :06:56.
:06:56. > :07:03.parish. Gran Used to tell the tale of two very different children. My
:07:03. > :07:10.father was very sweet, she painted a very rosy picture of my father.
:07:10. > :07:13.But the picture she painted of my aunt Ann was something of a very
:07:13. > :07:23.headstrong young girl, who certainly did not like not having
:07:23. > :07:27.
:07:27. > :07:31.her own way, and needed discipline What sort of little girl were you?
:07:31. > :07:36.I heard that you were a little girl who wanted to be seen and wanted to
:07:36. > :07:44.be heard. I was always up to mischief. Getting up on your chair,
:07:44. > :07:49.speaking in front of visitors. yes, I would do that. Saying words
:07:49. > :07:52.that were not appropriate. mother overheard me saying to one
:07:52. > :07:58.of the gardeners on one occasion, I need to go in because I need to go
:07:58. > :08:04.to the lavatory. She took me aside and she said, Ann, you do not ever
:08:04. > :08:09.mention lavatories or knickers to men. We do not do that. And so I
:08:09. > :08:14.absorbed this in my tiny mind, and a few weeks later, my father was
:08:14. > :08:22.rebuking me, and I'm alleged to have said, though I have no memory
:08:22. > :08:25.of it, I will not, knickers lavatory to you, and then fled. The
:08:25. > :08:31.entire table burst into laughter, I thought these were such terrible
:08:31. > :08:38.words. You have then built a career on being as naughty as this, I
:08:38. > :08:44.think. And your father, it would appear, chose you as a bit of a
:08:44. > :08:49.favourite. I don't think I was necessarily my father's favourite,
:08:49. > :08:53.but I was a girl, after 10 years of having only a boy. But I do
:08:53. > :08:57.remember my mother telling me, as we were growing older, and it was
:08:57. > :09:01.clear that I was forming really quite serious ambitions, my father
:09:01. > :09:07.one day shook his head and said to my mother, Ann should have been a
:09:07. > :09:11.boy. He was completely baffled by it. I think the tradition in his
:09:11. > :09:20.family, and in my mother's family, was that the woman was the
:09:20. > :09:24.homemaker. And when he found, no, actually, no - that was his
:09:24. > :09:31.explanation. So you took after him? I have taken after both of them, in
:09:31. > :09:41.many ways. They were exceptionally good parents, I always say that the
:09:41. > :09:41.
:09:41. > :09:47.greatest of God's blessings to me They were a close family, with
:09:47. > :09:52.strong Christian values. But in the early 1950s, this strength was put
:09:52. > :09:58.to the test when the Admiralty posted Ann's father overseas. It
:09:58. > :10:02.meant the family had to be separated for three years. When you
:10:02. > :10:06.were little, only about five, I think, you set sail for Singapore,
:10:06. > :10:14.leaving your brother at home - was it an unsettling time for you?
:10:14. > :10:17.for me. My mother later told me how dreadful it was for her. My brother
:10:17. > :10:24.stayed largely with godparents during half-term and school
:10:24. > :10:28.holidays. But he at least had my grandmother. Many, many children
:10:28. > :10:33.were left behind at school, they were not even seeing their parents
:10:33. > :10:38.at Christmas. We all took it for granted, and what baffles me is
:10:38. > :10:44.that now we would regard that with horror, sheer horror, and yet, we
:10:44. > :10:48.have more family break-up than we have ever had before. Whereas then,
:10:48. > :10:55.when families were physically broken up, they hung together as a
:10:55. > :10:59.unit incredibly closely and tightly. It is an amazing paradox. On their
:10:59. > :11:05.return from Singapore, Ann's parents wanted to avoid any further
:11:06. > :11:15.upheaval for her. And so they took the decision to end roll her as a
:11:15. > :11:25.full-time boarder at a Catholic school in Bath. A seemingly radical
:11:25. > :11:30.
:11:30. > :11:35.step for a family who had brought Why were you sent to a Catholic
:11:35. > :11:38.convent? First of all, my mother's father was a Roman Catholic, so it
:11:38. > :11:44.was not something which was immeasurably strange to her. But
:11:44. > :11:48.secondly, she was concerned that it should be a good school. And one of
:11:48. > :11:52.the things she did, it was the old trick, which was quite common then,
:11:52. > :11:56.she would go and sit in a car outside the school and watch as the
:11:56. > :12:02.girls came out. Apparently she was impressed with the way the girls
:12:02. > :12:06.came out of the convent, in an orderly fashion, all the rest of it.
:12:06. > :12:11.And so she decided that that was to be the school for me. And yet it
:12:11. > :12:18.was a school, being Catholic, which considered you, an Anglican, to be
:12:18. > :12:23.a heretic. Oh, yes, undeniably. I was by no means the only Anglican
:12:23. > :12:26.in the school, we had quite a big minority of Anglicans. We were
:12:26. > :12:31.taught religious education separately. We were not allowed to
:12:31. > :12:35.go to our own church, we had to go to Mass with the Catholics. We were
:12:35. > :12:40.taught that non-Catholics were, they never used the word Inferior,
:12:40. > :12:46.but it is clear that that is what they meant. And so, yes, I was very
:12:46. > :12:52.aware of the division. The nuns were tremendously strict, they were
:12:52. > :12:58.never cruel, there was no element of misery. It actually strengthened
:12:58. > :13:04.character, because I never yielded, I always used to stand up for what
:13:04. > :13:11.I thought. Ann worked hard at school, but it was by no means all
:13:11. > :13:16.work and no play. My memories of Ann at school are that she was a
:13:16. > :13:22.delight to be with, because she was great fun. There was always
:13:22. > :13:29.something happening. She planned things and joined in things. One of
:13:29. > :13:33.Ann's projects was to further one's interest at school in Roman society,
:13:33. > :13:38.which enabled us to dress up as Romans, learn more about Roman
:13:38. > :13:45.history. It was a delight to have something to share outside of
:13:45. > :13:51.school hours. There you are at school, loving your Latin - when
:13:51. > :13:56.did politics make its way into your life? Quite early. I was in the
:13:56. > :14:01.debating society, and also I used to do the Midsummer public-speaking
:14:01. > :14:06.competition. I was encouraged by my English teacher, who always asked
:14:06. > :14:11.us to debate, we were never allowed to read set speeches, we had to
:14:11. > :14:16.debate properly. She was a very fastidious control of the debates
:14:16. > :14:22.in that sense. She would say, my dear, if you cannot sum it up
:14:22. > :14:26.properly... Ann did not confine her debating to school hours. As a
:14:26. > :14:30.young teenager, her passion for politics was already emerging in
:14:30. > :14:34.lively discussions with friends. were very difficult politically,
:14:34. > :14:39.she came from a strong conservative background, and I came from a
:14:39. > :14:44.Labour background. We had lots to say to each other about that. It
:14:44. > :14:48.was unusual for Ann not to win an argument, but at that stage, I did
:14:48. > :14:53.not change my mind, neither did she. We all thought she would be the
:14:53. > :14:57.first woman Prime Minister, we were convinced. I'm sorry it did not
:14:57. > :15:07.come true. At 13, what did you think the world would be if you
:15:07. > :15:12.I believed all politicians were like Winston Churchill, making
:15:12. > :15:20.great speeches. That is what I believed then. I don't think I had
:15:20. > :15:23.any real grasp of what it was about. The as the end of her school years
:15:23. > :15:29.approached, Ann set her heart on winning a place at Oxford
:15:29. > :15:33.University. She wanted to study classics, but she also had a night
:15:33. > :15:39.on Oxford's reputation as the talent pool for Britain's political
:15:39. > :15:42.leaders of the future. Undergraduates, these people are
:15:42. > :15:49.lucky. For everyone who is here, there are half-a-dozen who would
:15:49. > :15:53.like to be. What happened next did not go according to script. Ann
:15:53. > :16:03.flunked her Oxford interview and instead headed for Birmingham
:16:03. > :16:03.
:16:03. > :16:08.University. It was the mid- 1960s, the time of flower-power, free love
:16:08. > :16:14.and student sit ins. People took the decision into their own hands,
:16:14. > :16:19.that is why we are here. But Ann was not about to be whipped up by
:16:19. > :16:25.talk of direct action and social revolution. She was something out
:16:25. > :16:29.of her time. She was a throwback to the 1950s. She was somebody who
:16:29. > :16:34.reflected those values, who dressed in the ways of the 50s and not the
:16:34. > :16:41.60s, who spoke and behaved in the way of something a little bit
:16:41. > :16:47.historic. Nevertheless, that made her character and that was
:16:48. > :16:55.impressive by virtue of how assiduously she stuck to that and
:16:55. > :16:59.did not budge. I was very much against the strikes and sit-ins and
:16:59. > :17:07.goodness knows what, but that was the atmosphere. The reason people
:17:07. > :17:11.got very involved was that the world was very sharply divided into
:17:11. > :17:18.two conflicting political ideologue cheese, capitalism and socialism.
:17:18. > :17:23.You were on one side of the other. -- ideologies. No business firm
:17:23. > :17:27.should ever affiliate itself with any political party. You split your
:17:27. > :17:30.custom. You will not get any more conservative junk and you'll end up
:17:30. > :17:37.with Labour jump and everybody knows Conservative junk is better
:17:37. > :17:44.quality. That is exactly what my party is trying to put an end to.
:17:44. > :17:51.We want to see the day when all junk is equal. Why did you choose
:17:51. > :17:54.capitalism? Individual over the state, any time and any day. I have
:17:54. > :18:00.fiercely stayed Conservative because I believe so passionately
:18:00. > :18:05.in a small state. And now, even George Orwell in his wildest
:18:05. > :18:09.imagination, never managed to come up with microchips in wheelie bins.
:18:09. > :18:15.You actually have the state in your rubbish, I can't believe what the
:18:15. > :18:25.state is into these days. In her final year at Birmingham University,
:18:25. > :18:27.
:18:27. > :18:32.Ann decided to have another punt at And this time, she succeeded in
:18:32. > :18:39.winning a place at Lady Margaret Hall to study politics, philosophy
:18:39. > :18:43.and economics. Ann's political ambitions were back on track. As
:18:43. > :18:51.she set her sights on the one place in Oxford where she could get the
:18:51. > :18:54.experience and contacts she needed. The Oxford Union debating society.
:18:54. > :18:58.Undergraduates with political interests or ambitions have often
:18:58. > :19:02.served a sort of apprenticeship here for a lecture later to that
:19:02. > :19:05.most exclusive club of all, the House of Commons. An arena for
:19:06. > :19:12.those whose career will ultimately depend on their skill with language
:19:12. > :19:18.and debate. I have read it was a bit like Westminster, a gentleman's
:19:18. > :19:25.club. It is. It was modelled on Westminster. You have the dispatch
:19:25. > :19:30.boxes and the chair raised above. The standard of debate was
:19:30. > :19:33.immeasurably higher. It was seriously high. People would go
:19:33. > :19:39.into detail and they would swot up in order to debate, they didn't
:19:39. > :19:44.just debate prejudice, they would debate facts. You would spot in any
:19:44. > :19:47.year in Oxford, somebody or other who would go into politics, busy
:19:47. > :19:51.trying to make their name for that purpose. Who were your
:19:51. > :19:56.contemporaries? Tony Blair apparently overlapped with me but I
:19:56. > :20:03.never noticed him. Gyles Brandreth was there. Just as amusing then as
:20:03. > :20:10.he is now. Good evening, gentleman. Good evening, ladies, what the hell
:20:11. > :20:15.are you doing here? Hello, dear boy. Ann was an enthusiastic debater.
:20:15. > :20:19.Being quite small, she used to do a lot of debating standing on her
:20:19. > :20:27.toes and looking slightly surprised as she spoke, but she spoke with
:20:27. > :20:33.passion, with conviction. I was certainly a midget! I was and still
:20:33. > :20:36.an 5 ft 1 1/2, don't forget the half. I also weighed six stone 12
:20:36. > :20:40.so I was certainly very small. I had a very fierce debating
:20:41. > :20:47.technique. I don't think in those days I was quite so on fashionably
:20:47. > :20:53.dressed, but I was never trendy. can judge her fashion sense for
:20:53. > :20:56.herself in her first television appearance. Having talked a very
:20:56. > :21:02.large number of excellent undergraduate in my time, when you
:21:02. > :21:08.meet excellence it is there. It is usually... In 1971 she appeared
:21:08. > :21:14.alongside political heavyweights Dick Crossman, Shirley Williams and
:21:14. > :21:19.Norman St John Steve Lewis. In a BBC broadcast of an Oxford Union
:21:19. > :21:27.debate. The motion was equality in education is more important than
:21:27. > :21:33.excellence. What do you remember about that? I remember being
:21:33. > :21:38.terribly excited by it. This was my first ever televised debate. I was
:21:38. > :21:43.going to be live talking on television. I was tremendously
:21:43. > :21:49.excited, I was also somewhat nervous. It is with delight that I
:21:49. > :21:54.call upon Miss Ann Widdecombe. was taking the less popular side of
:21:54. > :21:59.the debate and I was saying excellence is more important than
:21:59. > :22:03.equality in education, because that was the motion. But it was
:22:03. > :22:08.something I firmly believed in. I am not against a utopia in which
:22:08. > :22:12.everybody has an equal, equally excellent education, but what I am
:22:12. > :22:16.saying is that in working towards that final ideal, we do have to
:22:16. > :22:20.make choices along the way and this is what perhaps has been most
:22:20. > :22:25.skimmed over tonight, they do have to be choices and my contention is
:22:25. > :22:30.we should choose excellence. It was a big night for me. What was the
:22:30. > :22:40.fall-out? I suppose the real fall- out was that it confirmed my taste
:22:40. > :22:42.
:22:42. > :22:46.for public performances. Ann's experience within the Oxford
:22:46. > :22:52.Union honed her skills and her political ambitions. But it was
:22:52. > :22:57.also a place in which her feelings were turned towards romance. With a
:22:57. > :23:01.fellow debater in the Union. We have talked about your family, we
:23:01. > :23:05.have talked about your career at university and what we haven't
:23:05. > :23:09.talked about, and I know a lot of people have asked you this, is a
:23:09. > :23:14.bad you'll long relationship with Colin Maltby. You are smaller --
:23:14. > :23:24.smiling! If you would be very unusual if you did not raise him.
:23:24. > :23:31.
:23:31. > :23:36.It was obviously important it # I found love and I found you.
:23:36. > :23:40.# I found love. Colin Maltby was three years younger. He had won a
:23:40. > :23:50.scholarship to Oxford, he was a brilliant physicist and he became
:23:50. > :23:55.
:23:55. > :24:00.Did he make you laugh? All the time. We made each other laugh. I could
:24:00. > :24:05.not imagine ever a close friendship let alone a relationship with
:24:05. > :24:10.somebody who did not make me laugh, I can't imagine it. I make myself
:24:10. > :24:15.laugh, people often think I am strange, but I like -- make myself
:24:15. > :24:19.laugh a uproariously. You might suddenly hear the great gale of
:24:19. > :24:24.laughter if you are passing. Your parents met him and liked him.
:24:24. > :24:28.and his parents liked me. And yet after three years, and I won't ask
:24:28. > :24:32.you why and how because that is personal. There's nothing personal
:24:32. > :24:37.about it for the simple reason there was nothing dramatic. It ran
:24:37. > :24:40.its course. It was an Oxford friendship that didn't survive
:24:40. > :24:44.transition to the real world. He is happily married, he has a family,
:24:44. > :24:48.he has had a great career as a banker, I did what I always wanted
:24:48. > :24:54.to do, become a politician. We have remained friends, we are still
:24:54. > :24:58.friends. No regrets? Not a tall, either about having that wonderful
:24:58. > :25:01.friendship and no regrets about the fact it did not conclude in
:25:01. > :25:04.marriage. And did not happen again with anyone else. And did not
:25:04. > :25:14.happen again with anybody else, although at the time I did not know
:25:14. > :25:15.
:25:15. > :25:25.that. Due in 1972, after six years in the academia, Ann graduated the
:25:25. > :25:33.
:25:33. > :25:38.And at 24, found herself in the A world that did not sit well with
:25:38. > :25:42.his politically ambitious graduate. -- vis politically ambitious
:25:42. > :25:52.graduate. As a young single women with no other means, she needed to
:25:52. > :25:58.earn a living. You start to work for Unilever or, writing...
:25:58. > :26:06.marketing. Soap powders. You're clear focus was on that political
:26:06. > :26:08.trial. Everything was accepted or rejected on the basis of would it
:26:08. > :26:18.get in the wake of this huge ambition. For example, I would
:26:18. > :26:18.
:26:18. > :26:24.quite like... It was clear I would never have been free in term time,
:26:24. > :26:28.I could never get involved in local activities in term time. I very
:26:28. > :26:31.said that quickly said I did not want to be a teacher. So she
:26:31. > :26:41.compromised her job satisfaction in the short term for her long-term
:26:41. > :26:42.
:26:42. > :26:48.goal and devoted all her evenings But during this challenging period,
:26:48. > :26:58.she began to question the other great driving force in her life.
:26:58. > :27:01.
:27:01. > :27:05.Which she had believed unshakeable. Something happened and it was no
:27:05. > :27:10.flash in the night, no sudden falling out with God, so to speak,
:27:10. > :27:14.or the concept. There was a very gradual erosion of belief to such
:27:14. > :27:18.an extent that one day I would have said of course I'm a Christian and
:27:18. > :27:23.the next I would have said I'm not sure and the next I would have said
:27:23. > :27:28.of course on a Christian. It was terribly so. I certainly never
:27:28. > :27:36.became an atheist. I became agnostic. A within the family there
:27:36. > :27:40.was a sadness. There was a sadness in the way that when somebody
:27:40. > :27:44.decides to follow Jesus, they are simply making their life the best
:27:44. > :27:48.it can be, it is not just about life after death and eternal
:27:48. > :27:52.salvation, it is about the here and now, about how our lives were
:27:52. > :27:57.created by God to be the best they could be. There wasn't a
:27:57. > :28:04.disappointment, but there was a sadness. Did you discuss it with
:28:04. > :28:09.your brother or your family? They knew my position. Why did Aunt Ann
:28:09. > :28:12.suddenly not come to church every week? I was very useful at
:28:12. > :28:21.Christmas, I stayed behind and cooked the Christmas lunch even
:28:21. > :28:26.though I can't Kirk! -- Cook. There were no big discussions. We are not
:28:26. > :28:30.that sort of family, we don't go in for that. And coming back to faith,
:28:30. > :28:40.there was no big flash in the night, no Damascene moment, nothing like
:28:40. > :28:53.
:28:53. > :29:01.that at all. There was a very The 1970s was a decade of radical
:29:01. > :29:06.social change marked by conflict. Ann's struggle to become an MP was
:29:06. > :29:12.played out against a background of industrial action, power cuts and
:29:12. > :29:21.the three-day week. Women were making their presence felt in
:29:21. > :29:27.society, but there has no quality of the sexes. -- there was. In the
:29:27. > :29:32.70s, it was perfectly lawful for a firm to advertise the job with two
:29:32. > :29:37.rates of pay specified underneath, one for men, one for women. It was
:29:37. > :29:42.perfectly lawful to refuse finance to way woman just because she was a
:29:42. > :29:51.woman. It was lawful to refuse to rent a flat will woman just because
:29:51. > :29:57.she was a woman. All those various things happened to me. There were
:29:57. > :30:00.not many women MPs. Ann herself told me about sexism that she
:30:00. > :30:06.encountered in those constituency selection meetings where they would
:30:06. > :30:10.ask her when she would have a baby or some such offensive phrase. She
:30:10. > :30:15.was very adept at brushing them off, of course. Nevertheless, I suspect
:30:15. > :30:25.that was part of her hardening process, her skin thickening
:30:25. > :30:29.
:30:29. > :30:34.In 1977, Ann applied to be Conservative candidate for Burnley.
:30:34. > :30:39.That tough skin was put to the test. Someone made reference to her short
:30:39. > :30:48.stature and asked if she thought she was up to the job. Nevertheless,
:30:48. > :30:57.she was selected. And she was prepared to pull out all the stops
:30:57. > :31:01.against the sitting MP, an ex-minor. You had to go down mines and
:31:01. > :31:08.working men's clubs. Yes, it was a revelation, and no bad thing, that
:31:08. > :31:11.I had to go and fight that kind of seat. It toughens you up. Yes, and
:31:11. > :31:15.it prepared you, and it showed you that politics was a very expensive
:31:15. > :31:22.business. I had to travel up to Burnley every single week. And in
:31:22. > :31:26.those days, there was no help. Because you're a woman, you need
:31:26. > :31:33.some help, there was none of that. You would not have agreed to that,
:31:33. > :31:40.anyway. I certainly wouldn't. Despite her best efforts, the
:31:40. > :31:50.sitting MP Dan Jones was re-elected. In 1983, Ann's prospects were
:31:50. > :31:55.looking more hopeful. Mr Tony Paterson, 20 votes, Miss Ann
:31:55. > :32:05.Widdecombe, 41. She was selected as Conservative and a neck for
:32:05. > :32:06.
:32:06. > :32:10.Plymouth Devonport. -- Conservative candidate. She was up against the
:32:10. > :32:13.new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Dr David Owen. All the
:32:14. > :32:17.world's press were on him, and therefore they had to be on the
:32:17. > :32:22.other candidate as well. Nobody knew what was going to happen to
:32:22. > :32:26.the seat. He was no longer a Labour member, he was SDP. Was he going to
:32:26. > :32:30.take the vote with him, or was it going to become a Labour seat?
:32:30. > :32:36.Nobody knew. It was a three-way marginal, it was tremendously
:32:36. > :32:43.exciting. The party were pouring helped into Devonport to try to
:32:43. > :32:48.make it happen, it was a very heady time. Hello, I'm Ann Widdecombe,
:32:48. > :32:54.the prospective Conservative candidate... In this marginal seat,
:32:54. > :32:57.Ann was in with a real chance of winning. It has apparently been a
:32:57. > :33:07.very close encounter, the lord mayor is about to make the
:33:07. > :33:20.
:33:20. > :33:25.declaration... David Owen, 20,843. Ann Widdecombe, 15,000... David
:33:25. > :33:29.Owen's personal popularity within the constituency won the day, far
:33:29. > :33:33.exceeding all expectations. How deflated were you? Obviously I was
:33:33. > :33:37.very, very disappointed, but I was sensible, I never told myself I was
:33:37. > :33:47.going to win, I told myself I could, and it would be terribly exciting.
:33:47. > :33:50.
:33:50. > :33:54.Yes, the next day, the excitement had gone, a bit like after Strictly.
:33:54. > :33:57.Ann's third selection, as candidate for Maidstone, in Kent, a
:33:58. > :34:03.Conservative stronghold, was her best chance yet. But she was not
:34:03. > :34:09.counting her chickens, particularly since last minute polls predicted a
:34:09. > :34:13.surprise Liberal victory. As soon as I walked in, the local
:34:14. > :34:21.journalist came up to me and said, congratulations, you have won. I
:34:21. > :34:26.never believed it, I treated every poll as if I was going to lose. But
:34:26. > :34:30.I could see the votes piling up. Eventually I got to a point where I
:34:30. > :34:34.thought, you might as well start to enjoy this, you are actually
:34:34. > :34:43.winning. I said to my mother, it looks as if we're winning. She said,
:34:43. > :34:49.don't say that! But we did. I had Labour voters telling me that they
:34:49. > :34:59.were crossing straight over to me... And that was it, the culmination of
:34:59. > :35:02.15 years of very, very continuous efforts to get into Parliament.
:35:02. > :35:08.Before parliament managed to get back into the chamber, you went and
:35:08. > :35:11.sat on your seat in silence and peace. I did, I always said that I
:35:11. > :35:18.would believe I had got in when I felt the green leather underneath
:35:19. > :35:24.me. So, I went into the chamber, when it was completely empty, and I
:35:24. > :35:28.went and sat on a green bench, I felt the leather, and bounced up
:35:28. > :35:38.and down a bit. Then in came another one, and he had a bouncer
:35:38. > :35:43.
:35:43. > :35:47.as well, and we both said, we are Ann's first parliament in 1987
:35:47. > :35:57.coincided with Margaret Thatcher's third and last term as Prime
:35:57. > :36:01.
:36:01. > :36:05.Minister. There you are, a young, under 40, female MP, very much in
:36:05. > :36:12.the minority, as is still the situation, and yet the boss was Mrs
:36:12. > :36:19.Thatcher, and I wondered whether she extended some kind of sisterly
:36:19. > :36:24.message. She did not, she did not! Neither Mrs Thatcher nor I would
:36:24. > :36:27.have had any time for what might loosely be described as the
:36:27. > :36:32.sisterhood approach. As far as I was concerned, I was a member of
:36:32. > :36:36.parliament, I was not a woman MP, I was an MP who happened to be a
:36:36. > :36:42.woman. I got there on the same basis as the men, which a lot of
:36:42. > :36:46.women cannot say now. I competed equally, and I prevailed. Are you
:36:46. > :36:49.saying women MPs are not competing equally any more? Certainly not, if
:36:49. > :36:55.you have got positive discrimination, and a shortlists
:36:55. > :36:58.for women. They do not have to do what we had to do. I remember one
:36:58. > :37:04.of the Blair babes came up to be in the corridors and said to me, isn't
:37:04. > :37:07.it horrible how the men are so rude to us? I said, yes, and isn't it
:37:08. > :37:12.horrible how they are so rude to each other? She had not thought of
:37:12. > :37:17.that. She had just been roughed up in the chamber, she assumed it was
:37:17. > :37:20.because she was a woman - it was because she was useless. Ann had
:37:20. > :37:24.waited most of her life to be in a position to make a difference, and
:37:24. > :37:32.she did not waste any time getting stuck into one of the most
:37:32. > :37:36.politically and morally contentious issues of the day. The anti-
:37:36. > :37:40.abortion debate was a very big issue. And very early in my
:37:40. > :37:44.Parliament. It set you apart from a lot of people, and probably caused
:37:44. > :37:50.a bit of trouble later on for your rise through the ranks. I don't
:37:50. > :37:55.think it did, for this reason, everywhere you looked in parliament,
:37:55. > :38:05.there were pro-lifers. They were in every single part of the party and
:38:05. > :38:05.
:38:05. > :38:09.of Parliament. Ann chose to ally himself with the Liberal MP at the
:38:10. > :38:13.centre of the anti-abortion debate. It is very good that we have got so
:38:13. > :38:18.much all-party support, people from 10 different political parties who
:38:18. > :38:22.are backing the bill. David under had introduced a Private Member's
:38:23. > :38:32.bill to set the legal limit for abortion at 18 weeks, instead of 28
:38:33. > :38:33.
:38:33. > :38:37.weeks. -- David Alton. Ann recognised someone who felt as
:38:37. > :38:41.passionately as she did. Bustling over towards me was this diminutive
:38:41. > :38:45.figure, who was clearly very much in charge of what was going on. She
:38:45. > :38:49.said, you're going to need some help. At this point, I looked at
:38:49. > :38:54.her in puzzlement, because I really did not know who she was. She did
:38:54. > :38:59.not get over that for some time afterwards, but I realised as the
:38:59. > :39:04.weeks went on that the offer of help was well meant, well made and
:39:04. > :39:10.well delivered. There has been mention of the rights of women, but
:39:10. > :39:14.nowhere has there been any mention of the unborn child. Everybody
:39:14. > :39:19.forgets there are two beings involved, the woman and the child.
:39:19. > :39:27.And the only voice the child has is that of Parliament. It has no other
:39:27. > :39:32.voice, it cannot speak for itself. But if you, for instance, had found
:39:32. > :39:35.yourself at university, for some reason you find yourself pregnant...
:39:35. > :39:41.You do not find yourself pregnant, you have to do something in order
:39:41. > :39:45.to get there. Absolutely, but it is not... It does not just happened.
:39:45. > :39:51.But it is not on target every time. If something has gone wrong and you
:39:51. > :39:55.find yourself pregnant... If you give birth to a child, no matter
:39:55. > :40:00.how inconvenient the circumstances, no matter how appalling the
:40:00. > :40:05.situation, no matter how handicapped that child might be,
:40:05. > :40:13.from the moment that that child is born, it has equal civil rights
:40:13. > :40:23.with the rest of us. And I cannot see why, a few months back, it does
:40:23. > :40:27.
:40:27. > :40:37.The two MPs campaigned hard to change the abortion law. They spoke
:40:37. > :40:40.
:40:40. > :40:44.up and down the country, often facing fierce opposition. The two
:40:44. > :40:48.of us could have written a guide to the back doors of public buildings
:40:48. > :40:53.in Britain. We were smuggled in and out of buildings. My home was
:40:53. > :40:57.picketed, my constituency office was burnt out at one stage. It was
:40:57. > :41:03.a fairly difficult period. You had to deal with an awful lot of bad
:41:03. > :41:08.publicity and vitriol. That's true. How did you protect yourself
:41:08. > :41:12.against that? It must hurt. doesn't, when you're very confident
:41:12. > :41:16.of the cause, it really does not hurt at all. If it had been my
:41:16. > :41:21.colleagues turning on me, it might have been difficult, but when it is
:41:21. > :41:25.a group of banner-waving women spitting insults, it is water off a
:41:25. > :41:28.duck's back. It makes me think that you don't like women. It could have
:41:28. > :41:35.been a bunch of men, but on this occasion, it was nearly always
:41:35. > :41:39.women. Did it never shake you emotionally? No, if you're utterly
:41:39. > :41:44.committed to something, you will not be shaken by opposition, and if
:41:44. > :41:50.you are, you should go, you're no good if you're shaken by opposition.
:41:50. > :41:55.I want to return to fade. Obviously, your debating, particularly on the
:41:55. > :41:59.abortion issue, people said it was coloured by your religious beliefs.
:41:59. > :42:03.I would never deny the influence of my faith on my decisions, ever. It
:42:03. > :42:09.should have, and it always will have the first and primary
:42:09. > :42:16.influence. But as it happens, pro- life was not the direct result of
:42:16. > :42:21.fate. If anything, I sometimes say, with just a touch of cynicism, it
:42:21. > :42:25.is not that I'm pro-life because I'm a Catholic, but I'm a Catholic
:42:25. > :42:28.because I'm pro-life. And there is some truth in that, because it was
:42:28. > :42:33.while I was campaigning on the pro- life issues that I came so much
:42:33. > :42:36.into contact with the solecism, found out how much it had changed
:42:36. > :42:46.since I was at school, became genuinely interested, and from then
:42:46. > :42:51.
:42:51. > :42:55.Over the years, Ann became increasingly horrified at what she
:42:55. > :43:04.saw as the changing moral compass of the Church of England. For her,
:43:04. > :43:09.this came to a dramatic head in the early 1990s. People would say,
:43:09. > :43:15.Church of England, Roman Catholic Church - they believe in the
:43:15. > :43:20.fundamentals. Of course they do. But I cannot deny that I had become,
:43:20. > :43:24.despite my deep Anglican roots, increasingly fed up, is the only
:43:25. > :43:31.expression, with the Anglican Church's tendency to compromise on
:43:31. > :43:35.anything and everything. And for me, the final straw, in what by then
:43:35. > :43:40.was already a pretty large bundle, came when we heard the debate over
:43:40. > :43:45.women priests. It was not about, is this the are logically right, is it
:43:45. > :43:50.something we should do according to the gospel? It was about, if we do
:43:50. > :43:56.not do this, we will not appeal to the modern world. So, homosexuality,
:43:56. > :44:03.women priests, that is all a no-no? To my way of thinking, it is all a
:44:03. > :44:07.no-no. And homosexuality of Catholic priests? There is a number
:44:07. > :44:12.of homosexuals in the Anglican Church, and in Parliament. I dare
:44:12. > :44:16.say that in this room full of TV crew, there might even be one, I
:44:16. > :44:20.don't know, I do not wish to know, it is not an issue for me. People
:44:21. > :44:27.like you want to make it an issue. I'm interested in your opinion.
:44:27. > :44:31.That's my opinion. So you would be happy with a homosexual priest?
:44:32. > :44:36.Good heavens above. It is the action which the Church teaches
:44:36. > :44:43.against, it never teaches that to be tempted is wrong, it is what you
:44:44. > :44:47.do that actually counts. What Ann did next was radical. She abandoned
:44:47. > :44:57.her deep Anglican groups and converted to the Roman Catholic
:44:57. > :44:59.
:44:59. > :45:03.Church. -- roots. You could call it her returning home. She was brought
:45:03. > :45:13.up in a convent school, so in many ways, Catholicism is her natural
:45:13. > :45:14.
:45:14. > :45:19.In April 1993 the media was there in force to record the moment.
:45:19. > :45:25.thought we were going to a very quiet, private ceremony at
:45:25. > :45:35.Westminster Cathedral. Flanked by her sponsors, MPs David Alton and
:45:35. > :45:40.
:45:40. > :45:45.Julian Brazier, she was formally There was this moment. About 55,000
:45:45. > :45:50.flashbulbs lived up and I closed my eyes and the caption next day was
:45:50. > :45:56.eyes closed in prayer. No, they were closed against this sudden
:45:56. > :46:00.explosion of flashbulbs going up all over the place. -- going off.
:46:00. > :46:04.The media interest in her religious beliefs is indicative of the
:46:04. > :46:10.attention she has attracted over the past 25 years. Her forthright
:46:10. > :46:15.views have made her a favourite of headline writers. One of her most
:46:15. > :46:20.memorable public clashes was with Michael Howard when he was Home
:46:20. > :46:30.Secretary. And Ann was minister for prisons and immigration. My Right
:46:30. > :46:32.
:46:32. > :46:35.Honourable and learned friend has a I was in my job and in those days I
:46:35. > :46:40.had enormous respect for Michael Howard, who wife thought would make
:46:40. > :46:43.a real difference. I was excited about the department and the areas
:46:43. > :46:49.of responsibility and I was quite excited about the boss I was going
:46:49. > :46:54.to work for. That didn't last! clash with Howard came over the
:46:54. > :46:59.sacking of the head of the Prison Service. We demean our high office
:46:59. > :47:04.if we mistreat our public servants. She is perfectly entitled to
:47:04. > :47:10.disagree with my judgment, there is no basis for her attack on my
:47:10. > :47:16.integrity. She publicly criticised Howard, coining the phrase that was
:47:16. > :47:21.picked up everywhere. You forever imprinted the something of the
:47:21. > :47:25.night about him. I'm not going to rehash it now because it was 1997,
:47:26. > :47:35.we have both moved on and we are moderately civil to each other and
:47:35. > :47:41.I wish him no ill will. But I don't regret saying what I said. Passion
:47:41. > :47:45.us. Ann's big personality Levey has meant that down the years she has
:47:45. > :47:52.also been on the receiving end of some colourful descriptions.
:47:52. > :47:59.look like a Dali can drag. I am the guy who described Ann Widdecombe as
:47:59. > :48:06.a wonderful cross between Danny De Vito and Margaret Rutherford.
:48:06. > :48:09.image you have... That has been created for you in the papers, I
:48:09. > :48:13.suppose, and your survival, is a real show of strength on your
:48:13. > :48:19.behalf. The day you start taking offence at the sketch writers, you
:48:19. > :48:25.can give up. They are are uproariously funny. Matthew Parris
:48:25. > :48:31.called me a militant duvet. Simon hogger to said I was the sort of
:48:31. > :48:37.politician for whom sketchwriter has offered up two Hall box and!
:48:37. > :48:42.She is a very meticulous, carefully controlled individual. When she is
:48:42. > :48:45.-- challenged about Doris Karloff, she has her answers ready. The way
:48:45. > :48:49.I dealt with it was simple. My secretary would say somebody from
:48:49. > :48:57.the Daily Mail was on, they would pick up the phone and say Karloff
:48:57. > :49:02.speaking. What are they supposed to do? What about the positives of
:49:02. > :49:08.being underestimated? Underestimation is a powerful tool.
:49:08. > :49:12.I don't think it is a tall. I am just me and sometimes that has
:49:12. > :49:20.worked well with the public and sometimes it hasn't. How it can
:49:20. > :49:24.turn overnight, that is the penalty of public life. In recent years,
:49:25. > :49:31.Ann has appeared regularly on entertainment programmes. As
:49:31. > :49:37.presenter. Or contestant. You go for it! What is this supposed to
:49:37. > :49:43.look like? A change of image, but maybe not to change in attitude.
:49:43. > :49:50.Ann likes, needs to be the centre of attention. Whatever it is, it
:49:50. > :49:54.does come back to that in a need to be part of things. The
:49:54. > :50:02.parliamentary attention, the Church attention, the Strictly Come
:50:03. > :50:05.Dancing attention. By far her most famous for a into the world of
:50:06. > :50:15.showbusiness was her astonishing ten-week run on Strictly Come
:50:16. > :50:17.
:50:17. > :50:27.Dancing. My first reaction when I realised that we were dancing
:50:27. > :50:41.
:50:41. > :50:46.together was, this is going to be Whether people who said to you
:50:46. > :50:50.don't do it. Yes. When I was accepting this and the preparations
:50:51. > :50:57.were being made and the space was being created in the diary, I was
:50:57. > :51:02.still an MP. My entire office, from the oldest and youngest member, was
:51:02. > :51:08.against it. Hugely and massively against it and they all tried to
:51:08. > :51:18.talk me out of it. I packed my own judgment. As you always have done.
:51:18. > :51:20.
:51:20. > :51:26.It was quite a natural transition for her from the fear to that is
:51:26. > :51:30.the Chamber of the House of Commons to the stage that is the Strictly
:51:30. > :51:37.Come Dancing ballroom. No wonder she took to it like a duck to water.
:51:37. > :51:42.Quite an unusual dark! -- duck. was very difficult to teach
:51:42. > :51:47.somebody who doesn't have a single note in their body. She is
:51:47. > :51:54.completely tone deaf. And often you can dance with somebody and say we
:51:54. > :52:00.will start on the one. One, two, of walk off looking fabulous... And
:52:00. > :52:05.then we come together, no. It was a case of me looking at her like that.
:52:05. > :52:11.Off we go. In the first two hours of the first two days, Anton said
:52:11. > :52:19.to me that less time you spend with your feet on the floor, the better.
:52:19. > :52:24.Hence the spinning, flying, dragging, lifting. I know she's
:52:24. > :52:29.quite religious, but she wasn't praying, I was! There was quite a
:52:29. > :52:36.lot of that. What are you doing? I can't tell you, I am having a word
:52:36. > :52:42.with somebody upstairs. She always thought I meant producers.
:52:42. > :52:46.Overwhelmingly awful. I was having a certain number of weeks of
:52:46. > :52:51.sustained frivolity when I had no responsibility, couldn't hurt
:52:51. > :52:56.anything other than Anton's shoes. And no responsibility after 23
:52:56. > :53:03.years of everything I did affecting somebody. It was wonderful release
:53:03. > :53:08.and I was just there to have fun and I had fun. And the fun goes on.
:53:09. > :53:16.This Christmas, she is appearing in pantomime as Lady in Waiting in
:53:16. > :53:26.Snow White And the seven dwarfs. mg. Starring alongside her as the
:53:26. > :53:27.
:53:27. > :53:32.wicked Queen, strictly Judge Craig When I first met her, she was in
:53:32. > :53:38.the make-up chair for no more than five minutes. It was slightly too
:53:38. > :53:48.long as far as she was concerned. Get that mark out of my hair! She
:53:48. > :53:51.
:53:51. > :53:58.changed. She is so it showbiz. She Ann's circle of friends is wide.
:53:58. > :54:02.There is the glitz and glamour of her public friendships. But there's
:54:02. > :54:06.also Ann's private life that includes nieces, nephews and
:54:06. > :54:14.godchildren. What most people don't realise about her is she is totally
:54:14. > :54:19.normal. She's godmother to the -- to my youngest son, James, who is
:54:19. > :54:24.13. She spent some holiday with us in Devon this year. The sight of
:54:24. > :54:28.Ann getting on board a little dinky and being pushed out into the sea
:54:28. > :54:34.left me pretty apprehensive about the consequences! She is called
:54:34. > :54:39.Aunt and not Auntie. Very, very important. With the children, she's
:54:39. > :54:49.great, she's just like any other aunt. She tries to interact with
:54:49. > :54:51.
:54:51. > :54:56.them and talks to them. She Great Aunt Ann, does that do
:54:56. > :55:00.special Christmas treats with them? They certainly get special presents
:55:00. > :55:04.and things. I keep India opened for what they might be wanting
:55:04. > :55:09.throughout the year. I think I have got it sussed. They get nice
:55:09. > :55:14.presents. I always say every family should have a maiden aunt or a
:55:14. > :55:18.bachelor Godfather. They should have somebody who is single, nobody
:55:18. > :55:24.of their own to spoil so they can spoil other people. His there a
:55:24. > :55:28.family shaped, husband take -- husband shaped hole? There really
:55:28. > :55:32.isn't. People think if you are single You're either end embittered
:55:32. > :55:36.old maid or you're still on the hunt for you have had some terrible
:55:36. > :55:41.experience in the past which has put you off or you are gay or
:55:41. > :55:48.whatever it might be. I turn round and say no, actually, I'm just one
:55:48. > :55:53.of many, many women who are happily eat and contentedly single. Happy
:55:53. > :55:59.in her domestic solitude and in her retirement from political life, Ann
:55:59. > :56:04.nevertheless keeps a beady eye on what is going on in Parliament.
:56:04. > :56:10.What is your opinion of David Cameron as leader? I think he has
:56:10. > :56:15.done some brave things. I also think he has been very misguided in
:56:15. > :56:18.the way he has dealt with Nick Clegg in as much as he forgets who
:56:18. > :56:22.with the senior members of the coalition are. The Liberals are
:56:22. > :56:27.only there because of us, they are not there in their own right. They
:56:27. > :56:33.lost seats, they did not prevail in the last election. They need
:56:33. > :56:37.reminding of that from time to time. He should call their bluff. We do
:56:37. > :56:42.have liked to be prime minister? Yes, of course, because everyone
:56:42. > :56:46.has things they want to do. But there are 650 MPs, only one is
:56:46. > :56:51.Prime Minister at any given time. I did not going feeling if I don't
:56:51. > :56:55.become such and such I have failed. I always said, you know, one day at
:56:55. > :56:59.the time. Some people were surprised when he finally retired
:56:59. > :57:04.that you didn't go to the House of Lords. Was that your choice?
:57:04. > :57:09.certainly wasn't my choice. It was appointed exclusion. David Cameron
:57:09. > :57:14.was making vast quantities of peerages, he had to in order to
:57:14. > :57:18.redress the balance in the Lords. I was an obvious candidate and I was
:57:18. > :57:24.not there. That means he had taken a decision that I would not be
:57:24. > :57:32.there. Momentarily wounding for you? Yes, I would be a liar if I
:57:32. > :57:36.did not say that an exclusion that pointed didn't stab a little bit. I
:57:36. > :57:41.am a great one for saying it's no good looking back, you're not going
:57:41. > :57:44.there, you're going there. You look forward, you don't look back to
:57:44. > :57:52.what might have been or what you think should have been. Tough, it
:57:52. > :58:02.wasn't to be. If, however, he was expecting that I would sit quiet on
:58:02. > :58:08.
:58:08. > :58:12.Dartmoor, tough luck, I'm having Ann Widdecombe, funny, thoughtful
:58:12. > :58:17.and whatever you think of her politics, you have to admire the
:58:17. > :58:22.courage she has in her convictions. She's a woman who was true to
:58:22. > :58:23.herself regardless of public opinion. And in this world of