Ann Widdecombe Fern Britton Meets...

I have come to Dartmoor, in Devon, a place full of folklore and legend.

It is a beautiful place to blow away the cobwebs. But what sort of

person would choose to live here? You would have to be very tough,

rather resilient, a bit like a Dartmoor pony. I have come to meet

one woman who has left the cut and thrust of politics to retire here.

She has been described as being similar to an Albanian librarian.

She's charming, she's tough, and I think she's more than a little

vulnerable. I would some her up as a complete bundle of joy. She's

lovely. Ann Widdecombe, that's who we have come to see! I think she

wants to be loved. I described her as a deathwatch beetle, because she

could beaten around the House of By day, I'm the Shadow Home

Secretary. Deep down, there's so much more to me... There is a

softer side to her, if you get to know her. I'm succulent. Yes, you

are. But exactly, who is the multi- The best way to meet Ann these days

is to put on a pair of walking boots and rub up against the

Dartmoor winds. Have you been craving this after London? Yes, I

have been craving this for several years. I have always known this was

where I was going to retire, although I did, at the last moment,

have a very small wobble towards the north-west Highlands. But I do

not like midges. You do not get so many of those here! My father was

born in Cornwall, my mother in Devon. And we used to visit the

family a lot here. So, I was walking on the moors when I was

about 12 or 13. I think that is where it all began. You can walk

here, and you really can walk all day and not see another soul.

you good with your own company? vastly prefer my own company, I

always have. That does not make me anti-social, I do like my friends,

they come down and visit. I wonder whether you could put us up just

for a cup of tea? You would be more than welcome. Ann, thank you, to be

sitting in your lovely library. You gave your house this name... I did

indeed, and of course everybody thinks it means retirement, but

what it actually means, is the rest of my life. So, Ann Widdecombe,

retired MP - what does the future hold? I do not know what I'm going

to do, and that's the great joy of retirement. If you had said to me

one year ago, this is what's going to happen, you're going to be

dancing on prime-time television... Then you're going to be touring the

country, playing venues like I would have said, have an aspirin,

Ann Widdecombe was born in Bath in 1947. Britain was in the grip of

austerity following six years of war. But the mood was one of relief

and hope for the future. Ann's father was working as a civil

servant in the Ministry of Defence. His wife was a full-time mother to

Ann and her brother Malcolm. They were a very traditional English

family. The father was a real professional, a very gifted, able

man, totally dedicated to his job. The mother was a totally dutiful,

loving, conventional lady, of great warmth and humanity. Ann had a

brother, Malcolm, a pre-war baby 10 years her senior, who was destined

to become a vicar in the Church of England. Father, we thank you for

this food... Malcolm is now nearly 40, he lives with his wife and

their three small children in a vicarage, three miles from the

parish. Gran Used to tell the tale of two very different children. My

father was very sweet, she painted a very rosy picture of my father.

But the picture she painted of my aunt Ann was something of a very

headstrong young girl, who certainly did not like not having

her own way, and needed discipline What sort of little girl were you?

I heard that you were a little girl who wanted to be seen and wanted to

be heard. I was always up to mischief. Getting up on your chair,

speaking in front of visitors. yes, I would do that. Saying words

that were not appropriate. mother overheard me saying to one

of the gardeners on one occasion, I need to go in because I need to go

to the lavatory. She took me aside and she said, Ann, you do not ever

mention lavatories or knickers to men. We do not do that. And so I

absorbed this in my tiny mind, and a few weeks later, my father was

rebuking me, and I'm alleged to have said, though I have no memory

of it, I will not, knickers lavatory to you, and then fled. The

entire table burst into laughter, I thought these were such terrible

words. You have then built a career on being as naughty as this, I

think. And your father, it would appear, chose you as a bit of a

favourite. I don't think I was necessarily my father's favourite,

but I was a girl, after 10 years of having only a boy. But I do

remember my mother telling me, as we were growing older, and it was

clear that I was forming really quite serious ambitions, my father

one day shook his head and said to my mother, Ann should have been a

boy. He was completely baffled by it. I think the tradition in his

family, and in my mother's family, was that the woman was the

homemaker. And when he found, no, actually, no - that was his

explanation. So you took after him? I have taken after both of them, in

many ways. They were exceptionally good parents, I always say that the

greatest of God's blessings to me They were a close family, with

strong Christian values. But in the early 1950s, this strength was put

to the test when the Admiralty posted Ann's father overseas. It

meant the family had to be separated for three years. When you

were little, only about five, I think, you set sail for Singapore,

leaving your brother at home - was it an unsettling time for you?

for me. My mother later told me how dreadful it was for her. My brother

stayed largely with godparents during half-term and school

holidays. But he at least had my grandmother. Many, many children

were left behind at school, they were not even seeing their parents

at Christmas. We all took it for granted, and what baffles me is

that now we would regard that with horror, sheer horror, and yet, we

have more family break-up than we have ever had before. Whereas then,

when families were physically broken up, they hung together as a

unit incredibly closely and tightly. It is an amazing paradox. On their

return from Singapore, Ann's parents wanted to avoid any further

upheaval for her. And so they took the decision to end roll her as a

full-time boarder at a Catholic school in Bath. A seemingly radical

step for a family who had brought Why were you sent to a Catholic

convent? First of all, my mother's father was a Roman Catholic, so it

was not something which was immeasurably strange to her. But

secondly, she was concerned that it should be a good school. And one of

the things she did, it was the old trick, which was quite common then,

she would go and sit in a car outside the school and watch as the

girls came out. Apparently she was impressed with the way the girls

came out of the convent, in an orderly fashion, all the rest of it.

And so she decided that that was to be the school for me. And yet it

was a school, being Catholic, which considered you, an Anglican, to be

a heretic. Oh, yes, undeniably. I was by no means the only Anglican

in the school, we had quite a big minority of Anglicans. We were

taught religious education separately. We were not allowed to

go to our own church, we had to go to Mass with the Catholics. We were

taught that non-Catholics were, they never used the word Inferior,

but it is clear that that is what they meant. And so, yes, I was very

aware of the division. The nuns were tremendously strict, they were

never cruel, there was no element of misery. It actually strengthened

character, because I never yielded, I always used to stand up for what

I thought. Ann worked hard at school, but it was by no means all

work and no play. My memories of Ann at school are that she was a

delight to be with, because she was great fun. There was always

something happening. She planned things and joined in things. One of

Ann's projects was to further one's interest at school in Roman society,

which enabled us to dress up as Romans, learn more about Roman

history. It was a delight to have something to share outside of

school hours. There you are at school, loving your Latin - when

did politics make its way into your life? Quite early. I was in the

debating society, and also I used to do the Midsummer public-speaking

competition. I was encouraged by my English teacher, who always asked

us to debate, we were never allowed to read set speeches, we had to

debate properly. She was a very fastidious control of the debates

in that sense. She would say, my dear, if you cannot sum it up

properly... Ann did not confine her debating to school hours. As a

young teenager, her passion for politics was already emerging in

lively discussions with friends. were very difficult politically,

she came from a strong conservative background, and I came from a

Labour background. We had lots to say to each other about that. It

was unusual for Ann not to win an argument, but at that stage, I did

not change my mind, neither did she. We all thought she would be the

first woman Prime Minister, we were convinced. I'm sorry it did not

come true. At 13, what did you think the world would be if you

I believed all politicians were like Winston Churchill, making

great speeches. That is what I believed then. I don't think I had

any real grasp of what it was about. The as the end of her school years

approached, Ann set her heart on winning a place at Oxford

University. She wanted to study classics, but she also had a night

on Oxford's reputation as the talent pool for Britain's political

leaders of the future. Undergraduates, these people are

lucky. For everyone who is here, there are half-a-dozen who would

like to be. What happened next did not go according to script. Ann

flunked her Oxford interview and instead headed for Birmingham

University. It was the mid- 1960s, the time of flower-power, free love

and student sit ins. People took the decision into their own hands,

that is why we are here. But Ann was not about to be whipped up by

talk of direct action and social revolution. She was something out

of her time. She was a throwback to the 1950s. She was somebody who

reflected those values, who dressed in the ways of the 50s and not the

60s, who spoke and behaved in the way of something a little bit

historic. Nevertheless, that made her character and that was

impressive by virtue of how assiduously she stuck to that and

did not budge. I was very much against the strikes and sit-ins and

goodness knows what, but that was the atmosphere. The reason people

got very involved was that the world was very sharply divided into

two conflicting political ideologue cheese, capitalism and socialism.

You were on one side of the other. -- ideologies. No business firm

should ever affiliate itself with any political party. You split your

custom. You will not get any more conservative junk and you'll end up

with Labour jump and everybody knows Conservative junk is better

quality. That is exactly what my party is trying to put an end to.

We want to see the day when all junk is equal. Why did you choose

capitalism? Individual over the state, any time and any day. I have

fiercely stayed Conservative because I believe so passionately

in a small state. And now, even George Orwell in his wildest

imagination, never managed to come up with microchips in wheelie bins.

You actually have the state in your rubbish, I can't believe what the

state is into these days. In her final year at Birmingham University,

Ann decided to have another punt at And this time, she succeeded in

winning a place at Lady Margaret Hall to study politics, philosophy

and economics. Ann's political ambitions were back on track. As

she set her sights on the one place in Oxford where she could get the

experience and contacts she needed. The Oxford Union debating society.

Undergraduates with political interests or ambitions have often

served a sort of apprenticeship here for a lecture later to that

most exclusive club of all, the House of Commons. An arena for

those whose career will ultimately depend on their skill with language

and debate. I have read it was a bit like Westminster, a gentleman's

club. It is. It was modelled on Westminster. You have the dispatch

boxes and the chair raised above. The standard of debate was

immeasurably higher. It was seriously high. People would go

into detail and they would swot up in order to debate, they didn't

just debate prejudice, they would debate facts. You would spot in any

year in Oxford, somebody or other who would go into politics, busy

trying to make their name for that purpose. Who were your

contemporaries? Tony Blair apparently overlapped with me but I

never noticed him. Gyles Brandreth was there. Just as amusing then as

he is now. Good evening, gentleman. Good evening, ladies, what the hell

are you doing here? Hello, dear boy. Ann was an enthusiastic debater.

Being quite small, she used to do a lot of debating standing on her

toes and looking slightly surprised as she spoke, but she spoke with

passion, with conviction. I was certainly a midget! I was and still

an 5 ft 1 1/2, don't forget the half. I also weighed six stone 12

so I was certainly very small. I had a very fierce debating

technique. I don't think in those days I was quite so on fashionably

dressed, but I was never trendy. can judge her fashion sense for

herself in her first television appearance. Having talked a very

large number of excellent undergraduate in my time, when you

meet excellence it is there. It is usually... In 1971 she appeared

alongside political heavyweights Dick Crossman, Shirley Williams and

Norman St John Steve Lewis. In a BBC broadcast of an Oxford Union

debate. The motion was equality in education is more important than

excellence. What do you remember about that? I remember being

terribly excited by it. This was my first ever televised debate. I was

going to be live talking on television. I was tremendously

excited, I was also somewhat nervous. It is with delight that I

call upon Miss Ann Widdecombe. was taking the less popular side of

the debate and I was saying excellence is more important than

equality in education, because that was the motion. But it was

something I firmly believed in. I am not against a utopia in which

everybody has an equal, equally excellent education, but what I am

saying is that in working towards that final ideal, we do have to

make choices along the way and this is what perhaps has been most

skimmed over tonight, they do have to be choices and my contention is

we should choose excellence. It was a big night for me. What was the

fall-out? I suppose the real fall- out was that it confirmed my taste

for public performances. Ann's experience within the Oxford

Union honed her skills and her political ambitions. But it was

also a place in which her feelings were turned towards romance. With a

fellow debater in the Union. We have talked about your family, we

have talked about your career at university and what we haven't

talked about, and I know a lot of people have asked you this, is a

bad you'll long relationship with Colin Maltby. You are smaller --

smiling! If you would be very unusual if you did not raise him.

It was obviously important it # I found love and I found you.

# I found love. Colin Maltby was three years younger. He had won a

scholarship to Oxford, he was a brilliant physicist and he became

Did he make you laugh? All the time. We made each other laugh. I could

not imagine ever a close friendship let alone a relationship with

somebody who did not make me laugh, I can't imagine it. I make myself

laugh, people often think I am strange, but I like -- make myself

laugh a uproariously. You might suddenly hear the great gale of

laughter if you are passing. Your parents met him and liked him.

and his parents liked me. And yet after three years, and I won't ask

you why and how because that is personal. There's nothing personal

about it for the simple reason there was nothing dramatic. It ran

its course. It was an Oxford friendship that didn't survive

transition to the real world. He is happily married, he has a family,

he has had a great career as a banker, I did what I always wanted

to do, become a politician. We have remained friends, we are still

friends. No regrets? Not a tall, either about having that wonderful

friendship and no regrets about the fact it did not conclude in

marriage. And did not happen again with anyone else. And did not

happen again with anybody else, although at the time I did not know

that. Due in 1972, after six years in the academia, Ann graduated the

And at 24, found herself in the A world that did not sit well with

his politically ambitious graduate. -- vis politically ambitious

graduate. As a young single women with no other means, she needed to

earn a living. You start to work for Unilever or, writing...

marketing. Soap powders. You're clear focus was on that political

trial. Everything was accepted or rejected on the basis of would it

get in the wake of this huge ambition. For example, I would

quite like... It was clear I would never have been free in term time,

I could never get involved in local activities in term time. I very

said that quickly said I did not want to be a teacher. So she

compromised her job satisfaction in the short term for her long-term

goal and devoted all her evenings But during this challenging period,

she began to question the other great driving force in her life.

Which she had believed unshakeable. Something happened and it was no

flash in the night, no sudden falling out with God, so to speak,

or the concept. There was a very gradual erosion of belief to such

an extent that one day I would have said of course I'm a Christian and

the next I would have said I'm not sure and the next I would have said

of course on a Christian. It was terribly so. I certainly never

became an atheist. I became agnostic. A within the family there

was a sadness. There was a sadness in the way that when somebody

decides to follow Jesus, they are simply making their life the best

it can be, it is not just about life after death and eternal

salvation, it is about the here and now, about how our lives were

created by God to be the best they could be. There wasn't a

disappointment, but there was a sadness. Did you discuss it with

your brother or your family? They knew my position. Why did Aunt Ann

suddenly not come to church every week? I was very useful at

Christmas, I stayed behind and cooked the Christmas lunch even

though I can't Kirk! -- Cook. There were no big discussions. We are not

that sort of family, we don't go in for that. And coming back to faith,

there was no big flash in the night, no Damascene moment, nothing like

that at all. There was a very The 1970s was a decade of radical

social change marked by conflict. Ann's struggle to become an MP was

played out against a background of industrial action, power cuts and

the three-day week. Women were making their presence felt in

society, but there has no quality of the sexes. -- there was. In the

70s, it was perfectly lawful for a firm to advertise the job with two

rates of pay specified underneath, one for men, one for women. It was

perfectly lawful to refuse finance to way woman just because she was a

woman. It was lawful to refuse to rent a flat will woman just because

she was a woman. All those various things happened to me. There were

not many women MPs. Ann herself told me about sexism that she

encountered in those constituency selection meetings where they would

ask her when she would have a baby or some such offensive phrase. She

was very adept at brushing them off, of course. Nevertheless, I suspect

that was part of her hardening process, her skin thickening

In 1977, Ann applied to be Conservative candidate for Burnley.

That tough skin was put to the test. Someone made reference to her short

stature and asked if she thought she was up to the job. Nevertheless,

she was selected. And she was prepared to pull out all the stops

against the sitting MP, an ex-minor. You had to go down mines and

working men's clubs. Yes, it was a revelation, and no bad thing, that

I had to go and fight that kind of seat. It toughens you up. Yes, and

it prepared you, and it showed you that politics was a very expensive

business. I had to travel up to Burnley every single week. And in

those days, there was no help. Because you're a woman, you need

some help, there was none of that. You would not have agreed to that,

anyway. I certainly wouldn't. Despite her best efforts, the

sitting MP Dan Jones was re-elected. In 1983, Ann's prospects were

looking more hopeful. Mr Tony Paterson, 20 votes, Miss Ann

Widdecombe, 41. She was selected as Conservative and a neck for

Plymouth Devonport. -- Conservative candidate. She was up against the

new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Dr David Owen. All the

world's press were on him, and therefore they had to be on the

other candidate as well. Nobody knew what was going to happen to

the seat. He was no longer a Labour member, he was SDP. Was he going to

take the vote with him, or was it going to become a Labour seat?

Nobody knew. It was a three-way marginal, it was tremendously

exciting. The party were pouring helped into Devonport to try to

make it happen, it was a very heady time. Hello, I'm Ann Widdecombe,

the prospective Conservative candidate... In this marginal seat,

Ann was in with a real chance of winning. It has apparently been a

very close encounter, the lord mayor is about to make the

declaration... David Owen, 20,843. Ann Widdecombe, 15,000... David

Owen's personal popularity within the constituency won the day, far

exceeding all expectations. How deflated were you? Obviously I was

very, very disappointed, but I was sensible, I never told myself I was

going to win, I told myself I could, and it would be terribly exciting.

Yes, the next day, the excitement had gone, a bit like after Strictly.

Ann's third selection, as candidate for Maidstone, in Kent, a

Conservative stronghold, was her best chance yet. But she was not

counting her chickens, particularly since last minute polls predicted a

surprise Liberal victory. As soon as I walked in, the local

journalist came up to me and said, congratulations, you have won. I

never believed it, I treated every poll as if I was going to lose. But

I could see the votes piling up. Eventually I got to a point where I

thought, you might as well start to enjoy this, you are actually

winning. I said to my mother, it looks as if we're winning. She said,

don't say that! But we did. I had Labour voters telling me that they

were crossing straight over to me... And that was it, the culmination of

15 years of very, very continuous efforts to get into Parliament.

Before parliament managed to get back into the chamber, you went and

sat on your seat in silence and peace. I did, I always said that I

would believe I had got in when I felt the green leather underneath

me. So, I went into the chamber, when it was completely empty, and I

went and sat on a green bench, I felt the leather, and bounced up

and down a bit. Then in came another one, and he had a bouncer

as well, and we both said, we are Ann's first parliament in 1987

coincided with Margaret Thatcher's third and last term as Prime

Minister. There you are, a young, under 40, female MP, very much in

the minority, as is still the situation, and yet the boss was Mrs

Thatcher, and I wondered whether she extended some kind of sisterly

message. She did not, she did not! Neither Mrs Thatcher nor I would

have had any time for what might loosely be described as the

sisterhood approach. As far as I was concerned, I was a member of

parliament, I was not a woman MP, I was an MP who happened to be a

woman. I got there on the same basis as the men, which a lot of

women cannot say now. I competed equally, and I prevailed. Are you

saying women MPs are not competing equally any more? Certainly not, if

you have got positive discrimination, and a shortlists

for women. They do not have to do what we had to do. I remember one

of the Blair babes came up to be in the corridors and said to me, isn't

it horrible how the men are so rude to us? I said, yes, and isn't it

horrible how they are so rude to each other? She had not thought of

that. She had just been roughed up in the chamber, she assumed it was

because she was a woman - it was because she was useless. Ann had

waited most of her life to be in a position to make a difference, and

she did not waste any time getting stuck into one of the most

politically and morally contentious issues of the day. The anti-

abortion debate was a very big issue. And very early in my

Parliament. It set you apart from a lot of people, and probably caused

a bit of trouble later on for your rise through the ranks. I don't

think it did, for this reason, everywhere you looked in parliament,

there were pro-lifers. They were in every single part of the party and

of Parliament. Ann chose to ally himself with the Liberal MP at the

centre of the anti-abortion debate. It is very good that we have got so

much all-party support, people from 10 different political parties who

are backing the bill. David under had introduced a Private Member's

bill to set the legal limit for abortion at 18 weeks, instead of 28

weeks. -- David Alton. Ann recognised someone who felt as

passionately as she did. Bustling over towards me was this diminutive

figure, who was clearly very much in charge of what was going on. She

said, you're going to need some help. At this point, I looked at

her in puzzlement, because I really did not know who she was. She did

not get over that for some time afterwards, but I realised as the

weeks went on that the offer of help was well meant, well made and

well delivered. There has been mention of the rights of women, but

nowhere has there been any mention of the unborn child. Everybody

forgets there are two beings involved, the woman and the child.

And the only voice the child has is that of Parliament. It has no other

voice, it cannot speak for itself. But if you, for instance, had found

yourself at university, for some reason you find yourself pregnant...

You do not find yourself pregnant, you have to do something in order

to get there. Absolutely, but it is not... It does not just happened.

But it is not on target every time. If something has gone wrong and you

find yourself pregnant... If you give birth to a child, no matter

how inconvenient the circumstances, no matter how appalling the

situation, no matter how handicapped that child might be,

from the moment that that child is born, it has equal civil rights

with the rest of us. And I cannot see why, a few months back, it does

The two MPs campaigned hard to change the abortion law. They spoke

up and down the country, often facing fierce opposition. The two

of us could have written a guide to the back doors of public buildings

in Britain. We were smuggled in and out of buildings. My home was

picketed, my constituency office was burnt out at one stage. It was

a fairly difficult period. You had to deal with an awful lot of bad

publicity and vitriol. That's true. How did you protect yourself

against that? It must hurt. doesn't, when you're very confident

of the cause, it really does not hurt at all. If it had been my

colleagues turning on me, it might have been difficult, but when it is

a group of banner-waving women spitting insults, it is water off a

duck's back. It makes me think that you don't like women. It could have

been a bunch of men, but on this occasion, it was nearly always

women. Did it never shake you emotionally? No, if you're utterly

committed to something, you will not be shaken by opposition, and if

you are, you should go, you're no good if you're shaken by opposition.

I want to return to fade. Obviously, your debating, particularly on the

abortion issue, people said it was coloured by your religious beliefs.

I would never deny the influence of my faith on my decisions, ever. It

should have, and it always will have the first and primary

influence. But as it happens, pro- life was not the direct result of

fate. If anything, I sometimes say, with just a touch of cynicism, it

is not that I'm pro-life because I'm a Catholic, but I'm a Catholic

because I'm pro-life. And there is some truth in that, because it was

while I was campaigning on the pro- life issues that I came so much

into contact with the solecism, found out how much it had changed

since I was at school, became genuinely interested, and from then

Over the years, Ann became increasingly horrified at what she

saw as the changing moral compass of the Church of England. For her,

this came to a dramatic head in the early 1990s. People would say,

Church of England, Roman Catholic Church - they believe in the

fundamentals. Of course they do. But I cannot deny that I had become,

despite my deep Anglican roots, increasingly fed up, is the only

expression, with the Anglican Church's tendency to compromise on

anything and everything. And for me, the final straw, in what by then

was already a pretty large bundle, came when we heard the debate over

women priests. It was not about, is this the are logically right, is it

something we should do according to the gospel? It was about, if we do

not do this, we will not appeal to the modern world. So, homosexuality,

women priests, that is all a no-no? To my way of thinking, it is all a

no-no. And homosexuality of Catholic priests? There is a number

of homosexuals in the Anglican Church, and in Parliament. I dare

say that in this room full of TV crew, there might even be one, I

don't know, I do not wish to know, it is not an issue for me. People

like you want to make it an issue. I'm interested in your opinion.

That's my opinion. So you would be happy with a homosexual priest?

Good heavens above. It is the action which the Church teaches

against, it never teaches that to be tempted is wrong, it is what you

do that actually counts. What Ann did next was radical. She abandoned

her deep Anglican groups and converted to the Roman Catholic

Church. -- roots. You could call it her returning home. She was brought

up in a convent school, so in many ways, Catholicism is her natural

In April 1993 the media was there in force to record the moment.

thought we were going to a very quiet, private ceremony at

Westminster Cathedral. Flanked by her sponsors, MPs David Alton and

Julian Brazier, she was formally There was this moment. About 55,000

flashbulbs lived up and I closed my eyes and the caption next day was

eyes closed in prayer. No, they were closed against this sudden

explosion of flashbulbs going up all over the place. -- going off.

The media interest in her religious beliefs is indicative of the

attention she has attracted over the past 25 years. Her forthright

views have made her a favourite of headline writers. One of her most

memorable public clashes was with Michael Howard when he was Home

Secretary. And Ann was minister for prisons and immigration. My Right

Honourable and learned friend has a I was in my job and in those days I

had enormous respect for Michael Howard, who wife thought would make

a real difference. I was excited about the department and the areas

of responsibility and I was quite excited about the boss I was going

to work for. That didn't last! clash with Howard came over the

sacking of the head of the Prison Service. We demean our high office

if we mistreat our public servants. She is perfectly entitled to

disagree with my judgment, there is no basis for her attack on my

integrity. She publicly criticised Howard, coining the phrase that was

picked up everywhere. You forever imprinted the something of the

night about him. I'm not going to rehash it now because it was 1997,

we have both moved on and we are moderately civil to each other and

I wish him no ill will. But I don't regret saying what I said. Passion

us. Ann's big personality Levey has meant that down the years she has

also been on the receiving end of some colourful descriptions.

look like a Dali can drag. I am the guy who described Ann Widdecombe as

a wonderful cross between Danny De Vito and Margaret Rutherford.

image you have... That has been created for you in the papers, I

suppose, and your survival, is a real show of strength on your

behalf. The day you start taking offence at the sketch writers, you

can give up. They are are uproariously funny. Matthew Parris

called me a militant duvet. Simon hogger to said I was the sort of

politician for whom sketchwriter has offered up two Hall box and!

She is a very meticulous, carefully controlled individual. When she is

-- challenged about Doris Karloff, she has her answers ready. The way

I dealt with it was simple. My secretary would say somebody from

the Daily Mail was on, they would pick up the phone and say Karloff

speaking. What are they supposed to do? What about the positives of

being underestimated? Underestimation is a powerful tool.

I don't think it is a tall. I am just me and sometimes that has

worked well with the public and sometimes it hasn't. How it can

turn overnight, that is the penalty of public life. In recent years,

Ann has appeared regularly on entertainment programmes. As

presenter. Or contestant. You go for it! What is this supposed to

look like? A change of image, but maybe not to change in attitude.

Ann likes, needs to be the centre of attention. Whatever it is, it

does come back to that in a need to be part of things. The

parliamentary attention, the Church attention, the Strictly Come

Dancing attention. By far her most famous for a into the world of

showbusiness was her astonishing ten-week run on Strictly Come

Dancing. My first reaction when I realised that we were dancing

together was, this is going to be Whether people who said to you

don't do it. Yes. When I was accepting this and the preparations

were being made and the space was being created in the diary, I was

still an MP. My entire office, from the oldest and youngest member, was

against it. Hugely and massively against it and they all tried to

talk me out of it. I packed my own judgment. As you always have done.

It was quite a natural transition for her from the fear to that is

the Chamber of the House of Commons to the stage that is the Strictly

Come Dancing ballroom. No wonder she took to it like a duck to water.

Quite an unusual dark! -- duck. was very difficult to teach

somebody who doesn't have a single note in their body. She is

completely tone deaf. And often you can dance with somebody and say we

will start on the one. One, two, of walk off looking fabulous... And

then we come together, no. It was a case of me looking at her like that.

Off we go. In the first two hours of the first two days, Anton said

to me that less time you spend with your feet on the floor, the better.

Hence the spinning, flying, dragging, lifting. I know she's

quite religious, but she wasn't praying, I was! There was quite a

lot of that. What are you doing? I can't tell you, I am having a word

with somebody upstairs. She always thought I meant producers.

Overwhelmingly awful. I was having a certain number of weeks of

sustained frivolity when I had no responsibility, couldn't hurt

anything other than Anton's shoes. And no responsibility after 23

years of everything I did affecting somebody. It was wonderful release

and I was just there to have fun and I had fun. And the fun goes on.

This Christmas, she is appearing in pantomime as Lady in Waiting in

Snow White And the seven dwarfs. mg. Starring alongside her as the

wicked Queen, strictly Judge Craig When I first met her, she was in

the make-up chair for no more than five minutes. It was slightly too

long as far as she was concerned. Get that mark out of my hair! She

changed. She is so it showbiz. She Ann's circle of friends is wide.

There is the glitz and glamour of her public friendships. But there's

also Ann's private life that includes nieces, nephews and

godchildren. What most people don't realise about her is she is totally

normal. She's godmother to the -- to my youngest son, James, who is

13. She spent some holiday with us in Devon this year. The sight of

Ann getting on board a little dinky and being pushed out into the sea

left me pretty apprehensive about the consequences! She is called

Aunt and not Auntie. Very, very important. With the children, she's

great, she's just like any other aunt. She tries to interact with

them and talks to them. She Great Aunt Ann, does that do

special Christmas treats with them? They certainly get special presents

and things. I keep India opened for what they might be wanting

throughout the year. I think I have got it sussed. They get nice

presents. I always say every family should have a maiden aunt or a

bachelor Godfather. They should have somebody who is single, nobody

of their own to spoil so they can spoil other people. His there a

family shaped, husband take -- husband shaped hole? There really

isn't. People think if you are single You're either end embittered

old maid or you're still on the hunt for you have had some terrible

experience in the past which has put you off or you are gay or

whatever it might be. I turn round and say no, actually, I'm just one

of many, many women who are happily eat and contentedly single. Happy

in her domestic solitude and in her retirement from political life, Ann

nevertheless keeps a beady eye on what is going on in Parliament.

What is your opinion of David Cameron as leader? I think he has

done some brave things. I also think he has been very misguided in

the way he has dealt with Nick Clegg in as much as he forgets who

with the senior members of the coalition are. The Liberals are

only there because of us, they are not there in their own right. They

lost seats, they did not prevail in the last election. They need

reminding of that from time to time. He should call their bluff. We do

have liked to be prime minister? Yes, of course, because everyone

has things they want to do. But there are 650 MPs, only one is

Prime Minister at any given time. I did not going feeling if I don't

become such and such I have failed. I always said, you know, one day at

the time. Some people were surprised when he finally retired

that you didn't go to the House of Lords. Was that your choice?

certainly wasn't my choice. It was appointed exclusion. David Cameron

was making vast quantities of peerages, he had to in order to

redress the balance in the Lords. I was an obvious candidate and I was

not there. That means he had taken a decision that I would not be

there. Momentarily wounding for you? Yes, I would be a liar if I

did not say that an exclusion that pointed didn't stab a little bit. I

am a great one for saying it's no good looking back, you're not going

there, you're going there. You look forward, you don't look back to

what might have been or what you think should have been. Tough, it

wasn't to be. If, however, he was expecting that I would sit quiet on

Dartmoor, tough luck, I'm having Ann Widdecombe, funny, thoughtful

and whatever you think of her politics, you have to admire the

courage she has in her convictions. She's a woman who was true to

herself regardless of public opinion. And in this world of