RIP Ann Widdecombe – and shame on her haters

So we’re all clear now? It’s okay to celebrate the death of an elderly woman, provided she is right-wing. It’s okay to jump on a mainstream news channel while her body is barely cold and talk about how she was a ‘spinster’, an ‘old maid’ and probably a virgin. It’s okay to call her a bigot, too. But that one probably went without saying.

You would have thought the death of Ann Widdecombe, former Tory MP turned Reform UK spokeswoman, would be treated by all as a moment of solemnity and horror. A murder investigation has now been launched, after she was found covered in blood, apparently bludgeoned to death, in her Dartmoor home, where the 78-year-old lived alone. A man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of murder, but has since been released without charge.

But even before we learned that murder was suspected, Widdecombe’s sudden death was a jolt. She might have been semi-retired, last holding office as an MEP for the Brexit Party, but the irrepressible Widdecombe was still grabbing life. The day before she was found, cut down in what should have been a place of quiet, safety and peace, she gave an interview to Talk TV. She was planning to campaign for Reform leader Nigel Farage in Clacton. Politics was her life, right up until the end.

As Rory Sutherland has noted, Widdecombe also belonged to a fast-fading line of parliamentarians – from Tony Benn to Norman Tebbit to Dennis Skinner – who were bombastic, formidable and utterly sincere; motored by duty, principle and unflappable conviction. People who would not dream of meekly reading a speech from their phone, or dispensing lines to take in the media.

When they pass on, we lose more than just another public figure, who we may have loved or hated, agreed or disagreed with – we are losing a quality of politician which today’s culture seems all but incapable of replicating. Like a Second World War regiment whose ranks grow thinner with each Remembrance Sunday.

Which is what made it particularly despicable to see the usual suspects reflexively respond to Widdecombe’s death – we didn’t know then it might be a murder – with a mix of glee, mirth and casual derision. ‘Hurrah! Ann Widdecombe is strictly dead’, screamed a since-deleted article in the Socialist Worker. Veteran LGBT activist Peter Tatchell, in a since-deleted tweet, took the opportunity to lambast Widdecombe for opposing ‘every gay law reform in 30 years’, signing it off with ‘BIGOT!’.

This socialism of ghouls is something we have grimly come to expect. Today’s leftism has been infected by a hysterical intolerance and adolescent misanthropy that flares up whenever someone on the right dies – even when they are assassinated. The Socialist Worker also responded to the cold-blooded murder of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk with an article titled, ‘Charlie KKKirk’s chickens come home to roost’.

What was perhaps more surprising was Adam Boulton’s despicable mutterings on Sky News. Filling time in between police updates, the long-time political journalist felt moved to call Widdecombe a ‘spinster’ and an ‘old maid’ and re-air claims she was a virgin – a topic the fiercely private, devotedly Catholic Widdecombe refused to address publicly, despite endless prurient interest.

Boulton has since said he was only dealing in ‘facts’. To which I would gently ask, would he think it appropriate if another talking head responded to his own untimely death by calling him a fat lump with all the sex appeal of a bean bag? That wouldn’t be on – would it, Adam?

I don’t want him sacked. He can say whatever he likes. But there is such a thing as basic decency. Still, as we all know, that ceases to apply when conservatives die. Imagine if the details were different – if the death of a young, famously care-free Labour woman prompted televised musings of how she was a bit of a slag. The pundit would be lucky to ever darken a studio again.

I can’t imagine the public has much sympathy for it, if the combination of shock and affection online is anything to go by. Widdecombe may have been an unapologetic social conservative. She may have opposed gay marriage – a pretty mainstream position until it suddenly became a damnable heresy 12-or-so years ago. She may once have been easy to caricature as some relic of a blue-rinse past we would do well to leave behind.

But, in truth, she was more on the side of the people, common sense and genuine equality than her haters ever were. She rejected positive discrimination, because it patronises women and minorities. She backed Brexit, standing with the democratic majority against what she saw as Britain’s ‘enslavement’ by Brussels. She may have thought homosexuality is a sin, but she didn’t want to impose her view on anyone. ‘I do not care tuppence what consenting adults do. It’s not my business’, she said in 2013. (Naturally, you can find that perfectly reasonable quote in her Hope Not Hate profile.)

She was also the kind of loveable eccentric we used to produce, before we got so bland and uptight about everything. Her post-parliamentary stardom saw her take Strictly, Big Brother and panto by storm, becoming one of the vanishingly few right-wing Tories to take on an almost cuddly, national-treasure status. She was that very English of things – a deadly serious person who didn’t take herself too seriously; a reminder that even those we disagree with profoundly, whose lives are wildly different to our own, can still be great company.

This is why the public’s horror at Ann Widdecombe’s death – particularly now it is being treated as a suspected murder – has been followed by disdain for those whose first instinct was to deride her. The thought of her final moments, spent in terror, has rattled the nation; the sulphurous inhumanity that greeted her death remains confined to a bigoted fringe. Wherever she is now, I’m sure she is taking some comfort in that.

Tom Slater is editor of spiked. Follow him on X: @Tom_Slater_.