Beware - there's an awful lot of politics to get through before Anton du Beke

 
p46 stritcly edition 06/06 *strictly embargoed for publication before 2000hrs on Sunday 5th December 2010* Picture shows: The Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe and Anton Du Beke TX: BBC One Sunday 5th December 2010 1930hrs Credit: BBC
6 June 2013

Strictly Ann: The Autobiography
by Ann Widdecombe
(Orion, £20)

There are probably two classes of Ann Widdecombe fans: those who liked her as a tough old bird in post-Thatcher Tory politics and the rather larger class that encountered her as a jolly, up-for-it contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. The latter group should bear in mind that there’s an awful lot of politics before they get to Anton du Beke.

But there’s a case to be made for Ann Widdecombe simply as a feisty public figure in an increasingly conformist world, a woman who doesn’t give a toss what you think about her looks and isn’t prepared to compromise her views for anyone. If feminism is about robust individualism and uncompromising, occasionally bolshie, personality — and your guess is as good as mine — well, she’s up there with Mary Beard. Not that she’d thank you for saying so.

The trouble with Strictly Ann is more fundamental than its subject, viz, it’s twice as long as it should be. It’s not just that she digresses from discussing her childhood with some caustic reflections on the current situation but that she can’t bypass a chance to remember some constituency stalwart, some teacher, some old Oxford Union dispute, by name. Her editor would have done her a favour if he’d seen her off at the pass when she tried to namecheck workers who helped her in every election and department. That may make a lot of people happy but they don’t include the reader.

It’s a shame because she’s lived in interesting times. She is remembered for a couple of things during her political career. One is for describing Michael Howard, her ex-boss as Home Secretary, as having “something of the night” about him. We get every last detail of that. The other is for the controversy surrounding the issue of handcuffing women prisoners who were giving birth in hospital. It was a minor issue but remarkable for the bile she got in the Commons from fecund women parliamentarians patronising her for her temerity as a childless spinster in opining about giving birth. That was nothing, though, to the letter she got from a gay Cambridge undergraduate over her stance on Clause 28 calling her a “stupid barren witch” and hoping she died of cancer.

She’s good-humoured about the controversies but she gets her own back: Rachel Whetstone, Michael Howard’s special adviser, better known as Mrs Steve Hilton and a Google executive, is remembered for being “loud and disrespectful”. Michael Portillo was “a joy to work for” until he underwent a grisly personality change after the 1997 election. As for her leadership hopes, which she admits were always slim, one wonders whether they might have been rather better if she’d bitten the bullet and spent sensible sums on a really good haircut. And yes, I would say that about a man, too.

As for her personal life, it has been chequered with disappointments: not passing the 11-plus; getting into Birmingham university rather than Oxford first time; breaking up with her only boyfriend after three years. She accepts it all, bracingly. As for Strictly, and her spirited role at Covent Garden, it’s all warm-hearted stuff; the spectacle of an older woman just having fun was invigorating somehow. Ann Widdecombe will never make it as a national treasure but it beggars belief that she’s not in the House of Lords.

Go to standard.co.uk/booksdirect to buy this book for £16, or phone 0843 060 0029, free UK p&p

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