Ann Widdecombe: uncompromising politician who embraced TV fame | Ann Widdecombe

On Wednesday, shortly after Nigel Farage announced he was standing down from his parliamentary seat in Clacton to trigger a by-election, Ann Widdecombe appeared via video link on Talk TV to praise his decision.

“This is a very determined man,” Widdecombe said. he told the interviewerHe spoke with the same clear conviction that had defined his controversial political career and his more eccentric life in parliament. Widdecombe, formerly a Conservative, joined the Brexit party (later renamed Reform UK) in 2019 and said Farage showed “the kind of decision-making ability that is needed in a leader of the country”.

The next morning the 78-year-old man was found dead, seriously injured, at his home in Devon. A 26-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Widdecombe left Westminster in 2010, aged 62, after 23 years as an MP; seven of them were under John Major, an uncompromising and often divisive deputy minister.

But being disabled by nobility, he had no intention of a quiet retirement. Widdecombe may have been a devout Catholic with strict views on morality, law and order, but he did not take himself too seriously. During her incredible performance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010, the judges described her as looking like the Ark Royal, a transvestite dale, Vera Duckworth’s grandmother, haemorrhoids and lame canary – gained him a new and unexpected fan base.

He signed up to the scheme months after leaving parliament because, he later said: “I entertainment … I’m retired, remember? Retired? And I’m alive big fun.” Widdecombe had told producers he wouldn’t do anything “embarrassing or obscene” but was more than happy to look ridiculous by, as he put it, “jumping around like an elephant”. A few years later, when asked if he had any dancing tips for fellow politician turned contestant Ed Balls, he told the Guardian: “I wouldn’t call it dancing, honey.”

In another interview, he said: “I loved the fact that there was no responsibility. Everything I did for years was going to affect people. Absolutely…it couldn’t affect anything. If I got knocked down, no one suffered. People said: ‘Is this honorable?’ I said no, why would it be like that? “I am not a member of parliament.”

She has also made many other media appearances, including presenting for two tours as the agony aunt on Celebrity Fit Club (after writing a brief agony column for the Guardian). Do I have news for you?and guest appearances on Sooty and Doctor Who. But for all his entertaining acting and British quirkiness, Widdecombe remained uncompromising in his personal morality. Widdecombe was accused of victim blaming when it came to the subject of Harvey Weinstein’s victims in a discussion on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018. “It’s up to them, they had a choicesaid Widdecombe.

He was strongly opposed to abortion throughout his life and Resisted any move to liberalize LGBTQ+ rights – He has been highly critical of gay marriage, voiced support for “gay cure” conversion therapists and opposed same-sex couples on Strictly, and said of boxer Nicola Adams’s pairing with a female dancer: “I don’t think that’s what Strictly viewers, especially families, are looking for.”

Anton Du Beke, one of Widdecombe’s Strictly co-stars, said he was “devastated” by the news of her death. The pair were partners on the show and in a video shared ahead of the news that a murder investigation had opened on

“My thoughts are with her nearest and dearest and all her family. This is a sad day and I am devastated by the news of Ann’s passing, but I will remember and miss her fondly.”

Another friend, publicist Gyles Brandreth, described her as “an interesting mix of Danny DeVito and Margaret Rutherford.”

His reputation as an honest speaker and a hard-liner was won in parliament; most famously, in 1997, when he told a journalist that his Conservative colleague and former ministerial boss Michael Howard had said “something about the night” about him. This led to his hopes of taking the Conservative leadership diminishing (though he did so six years later).

Last year, as prisons minister, he sparked outrage by defending the government’s policy of handcuffing pregnant prisoners during antenatal appointments: “Some MPs might like to think that a pregnant woman can’t or won’t escape. Unfortunately, that’s not true.” (He said the shackles could be released if women went into labor.) He had also proposed a mandatory £100 fine for possession of even the smallest amount of soft drugs, but was forced to back down following criticism from the police and parliamentary colleagues.

As his media career waned in retirement, Widdecombe returned to a more active political role in 2019 when he was expelled by the Conservatives for campaigning for Farage’s then-Brexit party. He was later elected to the European parliament, but would stay for only seven months.

On Friday, former prime minister Boris Johnson described him as: “A heroic Brexiteer and a great speaker who can get Tory audiences so enthusiastic that they become very difficult to follow.”

He joined Reform four years later as an immigration and justice spokesman and remained an uncompromising voice of public opinion until his death.