No Regrets

SARAH JONES speaks to Ann Widdecombe ahead of her ‘Audience With’ appearance at Bournemouth on Friday.

WITH a personal motto of carpe diem – ‘seize the day’ – Ann Widdecombe is not going to let the small matter of a broken foot slow her down.

She tripped on some steps at a charity function – her view was obscured by a bouquet of flowers she was holding – and expects to be wearing her surgical boot until the end of February.

Talking to me via her mobile following her latest ‘Audience With Ann Widdecombe’ appearance, she is negotiating her drive home.

With her Satnav barking instructions loudly in the background, she is clearly adept at multitasking.

“I strongly believe you have to live each day as if it is your last because you never know whether it will be or not,” the high profile Tory shouts above the machine.

An MP for Maidstone and The Weald since 1987, she is planning to stand down at the next election.

“I just feel like I have come to a natural end,” explains the 61-year-old, known for her no-nonsense approach and traditional family values. “I have been an MP for 21 years and it will probably be 23 years by the time the next election comes. I feel that’s a long enough innings.

“I will miss being able to take things up that I feel strongly about and the very exciting moments, but I do think the time has come.”

She is looking forward to retiring to Devon, where she plans to go for walks on Dartmoor and write more novels (she has already published four).

Today she is well known for her TV work, but says any future on-screen commitments will depend on what – if anything – she is offered.

“I don’t do just anything,” says Ann brusquely. “I turned down Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! but there are some programmes, like the ones on social problems, that I have enjoyed doing.”

Since 2007 she has fronted Ann Widdecombe Versus for ITV1, in which she explores, at grass roots level, key issues troubling modern day Britain.

One of the last bastions of old-fashioned morality, Ann appears almost as a Mary Whitehouse-style figure for the 21st century.

Prostitution, benefits, truancy, the weightloss industry and girl gangs, have all come under Ann’s strict scrutiny.

It was the latter, she says, that had the most profound effect on her.

“The absolute lack of any empathy with their victims I found really frightening. It was something I had never really expected to see, not in this country in the 21st century anyway.”

Although Ann – who writes a regular column for the Daily Express – believes the reality TV phenomenon has mostly been harmful (“it’s turned into almost a ritual of people trying to make fools of themselves for other people’s entertainment”), she says documentaries about people’s lives are different.

Ann herself was the subject of one by Louis Theroux (known for his unassuming approach which often lulls his interviewees into a false sense of security), which followed her as she swapped front bench politics for the back bench in 2001. “I wasn’t unhappy with the final results,” she says.

Then there was her appearance in Celebrity Fit Club the following year, Ann lost 36lbs and later returned to the show as a judge.

When asked how she let the pounds pile on before her televised weight loss, she delivers a sharp retort.

“I never bother analysing these things.

As far as I’m concerned it just happened.

Some people talk of nothing else but it doesn’t worry me at all.”

During more than two decades in office, Ann – both former shadow home and health secretary – has seen some fundamental shifts on the political landscape.

The greatest change, she believes, was brought about by Margaret Thatcher, who was still in power when Ann was first elected.

“I remember what Britain was like in 1979 when everyone was out on strike and the unions were all powerful,” she says. “The huge change that she [Thatcher] brought in her time, I think was very impressive.”

Her political heroes may be Wilberforce (“he was so persistent in his quest to abolish slavery”) and Churchill (“when everyone else wanted appeasement, he saw you couldn’t appease Nazi Germany”), no one had a greater impact on Ann as her beloved late parents.

“They had an enormous influence on my life, in different ways,” she says.

“My mother didn’t like the fact I was going into politics. To her the word ‘no’ was an argument, she liked a peaceful life.

Whereas my father was very pleased.”

So close were they that Ann lived with her widowed mother, Rita, until she died in May 2007, aged 95.

Notoriously guarded about her personal life (Ann has never married or had children), it is clear that the staunchly religious politician doesn’t want to discuss her mother’s passing.

“Obviously I miss her terribly but it’s in the nature of living that the generation before you passes away.

You just have to carry on until it’s your turn.”

In the meantime, Ann does not linger on what might have been.

Of course she would have liked to have been Prime Minister or Health Secretary but she doesn’t dwell on it.

And when it comes to her personal life, she firmly says, “No. No regrets.

Regrets are a waste of time!”

■ An Audience With Ann Widdecombe is at the Bournemouth Pavilion on Friday, January 23. Tickets cost £12.50, call 0844 576 3000 to book.