Ann Widdecombe: Brexit-backing, animal-loving Strictly star
Former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe, who took refuge in Reform England, has died at the age of 78.
Even before she reinvented herself as a reality TV star, with a high-profile spell on Strictly Come Dancing, she was already a household name for her open-mindedness and no-nonsense attitude.
A leading figure on the right of British politics for decades and an enthusiastic early supporter of Brexit, he signed up for Strictly in 2010 shortly after leaving Parliament, having represented the Kent constituency of Maidstone for more than 20 years.
Although not a particularly flashy dancer, describing her own moves as “aggression”, she made it to the semi-finals before being eliminated.
Her appearance launched her showbiz career; this career also led to her appearing in Celebrity Big Brother and playing the role of the Evil Queen in Panto from Snow White.
Widdecombe was born in Bath, Somerset, in 1947 and studied Latin at the University of Birmingham, then Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, before being elected as a Runnymede District councillor.
He was a member of the conservative Christian Fellowship and held socially conservative views; He opposed abortion, aided death and gay rights, and supported the reintroduction of the death penalty.
After she was first elected as an MP in 1987, she faced cruel comments about her appearance, with one newspaper calling her “Doris Karloff”, a reference to a former Hollywood horror star.
But she brushed off the barbs by saying, “I’m toothy, chubby, ugly, overweight, a spinster – what the hell.”
He also did not shy away from criticizing his Conservative colleagues, describing the then home secretary, Michael Howard, as having “something of the nocturnal about him”.
Despite being one of the few female MPs in Parliament in the 1980s, she had little time for feminists, describing them as “whiners”.
Reflecting on her political career in 2016, she said: “I never went round looking for problems so I never found them. The only problem I found as a woman MP were there were insufficient loos.”
A lover of animals, he was one of the few Conservative MPs to oppose fox hunting.
Her devotion to animals led her to open a section on her website Widdyweb for the pet cats she lives with, to adopt goats, and to become the patron of a donkey sanctuary.
