Энн Виддекомб: политик и медийная личность Великобритании

British politician and media personality (born 1947)

Ann Noreen Widdecombe (born 4 October 1947) is a British politician and television personality. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, and the former Maidstone constituency, from 1987 to 2010 and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 2019 to 2020. Originally a member of the Conservative Party, she was a member of the Brexit Party from 2019 until it was renamed Reform UK in 2021; she rejoined Reform UK in 2023. Born in Bath, Somerset, Widdecombe read Latin at the University of Birmingham and later studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She is a religious convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, and was a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship. She served as Minister of State for Employment from 1994 to 1995 and Minister of State for Prisons from 1995 to 1997. She later served in the Shadow Cabinet of William Hague as Shadow Secretary of State for Health from 1998 to 1999 and Shadow Home Secretary from 1999 to 2001. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 1997. Widdecombe stood down from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election. Since 2002, she has made numerous television and radio appearances, including as a television presenter. A prominent Eurosceptic, in 2016 she supported the Vote Leave campaign to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU). Widdecombe returned to politics as the lead candidate for the Brexit Party in South West England at the 2019 European Parliament election, winning the seat in line with results nationally, serving until the country left the EU on 31 January 2020. In the general election of December 2019 – as with all other candidates for the Commons fielded by the Brexit Party – she did not win the seat she contested (Plymouth Sutton and Devonport), but retained her deposit and came third. Ideologically, Widdecombe identifies herself as a social conservative and stresses the importance of traditional values and conservatism. As a member of the House of Commons, she opposed the legality of abortion, opposed granting LGBT people legal rights such as the same age of consent as heterosexuals and the repeal of Section 28. She supported reintroduction of the death penalty for murder, though more narrowly applied than previously. She is opposed to all forms of assisted dying. She has a history of supporting rigorous laws on animal protection and opposition to fox hunting.

Born in Bath, Somerset, Widdecombe is the daughter of Rita Noreen (née Plummer; 1911–2007) and Ministry of Defence civil servant James Murray Widdecombe. Widdecombe's maternal grandfather, James Henry Plummer, was born to a Catholic family of English descent in Crosshaven, County Cork, Ireland in 1874. She attended the Royal Naval School in Singapore, and La Sainte Union Convent School in Bath. She then read Latin at the University of Birmingham and later attended Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, to read philosophy, politics and economics. In 1971, she was the secretary of the Oxford Union for one term, and became its treasurer for one term in 1972. She worked for Unilever (1973–75) and then as an administrator at the University of London (1975–87) before entering Parliament. She contested the seat of Burnley in Lancashire in the 1979 general election and then, against David Owen, the Plymouth Devonport seat in the 1983 general election. In 1983 she, with Lady Olga Maitland and Virginia Bottomley, co founded Women and Families for Defence, a group founded in opposition to the anti nuclear Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. Widdecombe was first elected to the House of Commons, for the Conservatives, in the 1987 general election as member for the constituency of Maidstone (which became Maidstone and The Weald in 1997).

Widdecombe joined Prime Minister John Major's government as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Social Security in 1990. In 1993, she was moved to the Department of Employment, and she was promoted to Minister of State the following year. In 1995, she joined the Home Office as Minister of State for Prisons and visited every prison in the UK. In 1996, Widdecombe, as prisons minister, defended the Government's policy to shackle pregnant prisoners with handcuffs and chains when in hospital receiving prenatal care. Widdecombe told the Commons that the restrictions were needed to prevent prisoners from escaping the hospital. "Some MPs may like to think that a pregnant woman would not or could not escape. Unfortunately this is not true. The fact is that hospitals are not secure places in which to keep prisoners, and since 1990, 20 women have escaped from hospitals". Jack Straw, Labour's Home Affairs spokesman at the time, said it was "degrading and unnecessary" for a woman to be shackled at any stage.

In May 1997, in the context of an inquiry into a series of prison escapes, Widdecombe remarked of former Home Secretary Michael Howard, under whom she had served, that there is "something of the night" about him. This much quoted comment is thought to have contributed to the failure of Howard's 1997 campaign for the Conservative Party leadership, a sentiment shared by both Howard himself and Widdecombe. It led to him being caricatured as a vampire, in part due to his Romanian ancestry. Howard became the official party leader in 2003, and Widdecombe then stated, "I explained fully what my objections were in 1997 and I do not retract anything I said then. But we have to look to the future and not the past." After the Conservative landslide defeat at the 1997 general election, she served as Shadow Health Secretary between 1998 and 1999 and later as Shadow Home Secretary from 1999 to 2001 under the leadership of William Hague.