𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It is very easy to understand why Ann Widdecombe chose Haytor Vale as her home. Its remoteness is truly serene. A sign in the Devon village reads: “Animals on road. Take Moor care.” Ms Widdecombe’s death is something that could have come from a novel, maybe even one of hers. She was found dead in her own home on Thursday after being murdered the day before. She suddenly fell silent in the middle of a Whatsapp conversation with a Channel 5 producer, seemingly killed before she could log into Zoom for the latest of many television interviews.

It has shaken the community, with locals telling me they need answers. Colleague Lee Anderson said he wanted justice for the former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokesperson. Richard Tice was visibly emotional as he spoke to supporters in the car park of The Moorland Hotel, where flowers had been laid by those wishing to pay their respects to the political firebrand. I was struck by how upset Mr Tice and others were. Key party figures Zia Yusuf and Danny Kruger were also there, bowing when they placed their tributes. At times it resembled an event to mark the passing of a member of the Royal Family. We tend to forget that while politics is a tough game it is played by human beings, who grow to have deep respect and affection for one another.

The closest I got was sitting in the audience of a televised debate about Brexit some years ago.

Despite her small stature – Ann told Louis Theroux in an episode of the documentary maker’s When Louis Met… series in 2002 that she was five foot one and a half, adding with a smirk: “And don’t forget the half” – she had what young people nowadays call aura.

People who met her told me about her dry sense of humour, and unflinching views.

In today’s climate of always needing to say the right thing and some people being a bit too keen to take offence, we to some extent seem to be forgetting that debate is a good and very human thing to do.

You may perhaps even change or evolve your view on something if you listen to other people saying things that might, at first, rub you up the wrong way.

Despite some what I would call quite backwards views regarding the LGBT community – in 2019, she suggested science might one day “produce an answer” to being gay – Ann is said to have been very caring. Strict but kind and with good intentions.

I very much enjoyed the BBC show 24 Hours in the Past, broadcast in 2015, in which Ann appeared among a group of well-known faces being dropped into a mocked up version of the Victorian era.

She shouted at actor Tyger Drew-Honey during the first episode staged at the Black Country Living Museum after he placed a bet – losing a penny when trying to keep his money as well as a pie from a street seller.

Ann blasted: “Young man, you are stupid!”

This unfiltered uttering of what she really thought is what made so many Brits love her.