Ann Widdecombe

Ann Noreen Widdecombe MEP (born 4 October 1947 in Bath, Somerset, England) is a British former politician. She was the Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Maidstone and The Weald from 1987 to 2010.

Early life
Widdecombe is the daughter of a Ministry of Defence civil servant James Murray Widdecombe and Rita N Plummer. She attended the Royal Navy School in Singapore,Ann Widdecombe set to stand down; BBC News, 7 October 2007 and a convent school in Bath. She then read Latin at Birmingham University and later attended Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). She worked for Unilever (1973–75).  She was then an administrator at the University of London (1975–87) before entering Parliament.

Career
She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 1987 General Election. From 1995 to 1997, she was the Minister of State for Prisons. Ann Widdecombe served in William Hague's shadow cabinet from 1997 to 2001.  Widdecombe retired from politics at the 2010 general election.

Throughout her political career, Widdecombe was socially conservative and converted from the Church of England to Catholic Church in 1992 after the Church of England voted to allow female priests.

She is a committed animal lover. She is one of the few Conservative MPs to have consistently voted for the ban on fox hunting."Ann Widdecombe compared to 'Fox hunting – Ban'", Public Whip. Retrieved on 21 March 2009.

Widdecombe was a contestant in the 2010 series of Strictly Come Dancing. In 2002 she took part in a Louis Theroux television documentary. It showed her life, both in and out of politics. She was cast as herself in an episode of the science-fiction drama Doctor Who.

On 23 April 2012, Widdecombe presented an hour-long documentary for BBC Radio 5 Live. It was Drunk Again: Ann Widdecombe Investigates, looking at how the British attitude to getting drunk has changed over the last few years.

Bibliography
Fiction
 2000: The Clematis Tree. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 
 2002: An Act of Treachery. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 
 2005: Father Figure. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 
 2005: An Act of Peace. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 

Non-fiction
 1999: Inspired and Outspoken: the collected speeches of Ann Widdecombe; edited by John Simmons, with a biographical preface by Nick Kochan. London: Politico's Publishing 
 2000: Kochan, Nicholas Ann Widdecombe: right from the beginning. London: Politico's Publishing 

References

 Other websites 

Category:1947 births
Category:Living people
Category:English novelists
Category:English Roman Catholics
Category:English television presenters
Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs
Category:Members of the British House of Commons for English constituencies
Category:UK MPs 1987–1992
Category:UK MPs 1992–1997
Category:UK MPs 1997–2001
Category:UK MPs 2001–2005
Category:UK MPs 2005–2010
Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Category:People from Bath, Somerset
Category:Politicians from Somerset
Category:Strictly Come Dancing participants
Category:Television personalities from Somerset

Category:Writers from Somerset
Category:Alumni of the University of Birmingham