Ann Widdecombe

MP for Maidstone and The Weald

Ann Widdecombe has been the MP for Maidstone and The Weald since 1987. She was educated at the Royal Naval School Singapore and La Sainte Union Convent, Bath. As an MP, Ann Widdecombe rose through the ranks to become Shadow Health Secretary in 1998 and Shadow Home Secretary in 1999. In July 2001 she announced her decision to retire from the Shadow Cabinet, because she wanted to be able to speak on issues which she felt strongly about without the constraints of being a Front Bencher. She also wanted to spend more time with her elderly mother and to devote more time to her writing career.

She is a frequent broadcaster and commentator and has also written four novels: The Clematis Tree (2000), An Act of Treachery (2002), Father Figure (2005), and An Act of Peace (2005), and is working on her fifth, The Idealists. In 1993 she became a Catholic, and met the Pope in 1996.