NADINE DORRIES: I'm so afraid I plan to lock up my cottage, return to London - and stay there until Ann Widdecombe's killer is behind bars

Published: 00:59, 12 July 2026 | Updated: 01:09, 12 July 2026 Within the next few hours I shall pack a case, lock the door of my cottage in the Cotswolds and return to London and the safety of numbers – until I know the killer of Ann Widdecombe is safely behind bars. This is the first time in the 25 years since I first stepped into public life that I feel genuinely scared. Knowing that Ann died in horrific circumstances – possibly murdered for the principled political views she held – has only deepened the state of fear that those of us who dare to be in Right-of-centre politics feel today. On Friday night, I barely slept. The slightest noise made me jump. Every creak an imagined tread on the floorboards, every squeak a door handle turned. When, awake in the dead of night, I turned on all the lights, I wondered: would anyone hear me if I screamed? At 3am, when I made a cup of tea under the confused and bleary-eyed gaze of my dogs, I found myself reflecting on the parallel paths our lives have taken. Like me, Ann was a novelist. We both embraced reality TV. We both served as government ministers and, both Brexiteers, we later defected from the Conservative Party to support Nigel Farage and Reform. We both wrote newspaper columns too and neither of us were afraid to speak the truth or express our points of view. Knowing that Ann Widdecombe died in horrific circumstances – possibly murdered for the principled political views she held – has only deepened my state of fear  None more so for her than when she referred to Michael Howard as having ‘something of the night about him’. That was during the 1997 Conservative Party leadership race, when he was her boss at the Home Office. Her words hit home and Howard, the most pompous and entitled of Tory leaders, never recovered. The public knew and respected Ann. They were on her side. And that, I realised, was yet another parallel. I’d had my own outspoken moment when, in 2012, I called David Cameron and George Osborne – then Prime Minister and Chancellor – a pair of posh boys who didn’t know the price of milk. My comments, like hers, caught the public imagination, the same media frenzy ensued – and the fact remains that Cameron and Osborne never quite escaped that label of elitism. I first got to know Ann in 2005 when I arrived in Westminster as a new MP. A fellow Conservative at the time, she proved invaluable in my attempts to reduce the legal limit at which abortion could take place from 24 to 20 weeks. The amendment was defeated. I could never have got to the stage of having it debated and voted on in Parliament without Ann’s guidance and reassurance in the face of relentless personal attacks. I was aggressively baited by female Labour MPs. There were posters on bus stops in London depicting me as a devil. I even had death threats. Throughout it all, Ann remained the voice of calm and common sense, teaching me the various procedural tricks of Westminster in the process. She had a gruff reputation, yet Ann was kind – all bark with very little bite (she last ‘barked’ at me on WhatsApp just a few days ago). I quickly developed a deep affection for the morally upright, authentic, principled woman that she was and I never argued back. I nicknamed her ‘Aunty Ann’, in fact. The first time I dared to call her that, I waited for the sharp telling off that would surely follow... yet she gave me just a wry smile in return. Ann served 23 years in Westminster and, when she stood down as an MP in 2010, it was widely expected she would be elevated to the House of Lords. We both embraced reality TV. We both served as government ministers and, both Brexiteers, we later defected from the Conservative Party to support Nigel Farage and Reform But, as they say, revenge is a dish best served cold. The men in suits repaid Ann for her rebellious comments in full. She was not elevated to the Upper Chamber because she stood for everything that the deluded modernisers who took over the Tories love to hate. It is my belief that this rejection was the biggest insult of the many she faced and must have been a deep and lingering source of sadness. The Tory powerbrokers deprived the Lords of a woman who would have raised the credibility of that dusty institution. She would have done it proud. To this day, I can remember sitting in the audience at the 1998 Conservative Party conference in Blackpool – one year after their catastrophic defeat to Blair’s New Labour – and watching Ann, then Shadow Home Secretary, rip up her notes and deliver a barnstorming speech on law and order. Marching from one end of the stage to the other, she simply captivated the audience. The standing ovation seemed to last an eternity. In the days that followed, she was mobbed by delegates everywhere she went. I hope that, as Ann passes through the Pearly Gates, all the saints and angels rise to welcome her with an ovation of their own for the magnificent contribution she has made – and for a life thoroughly well-lived. There will never be another like her. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.