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· Ann Widdecombe, the shadow Home Secretary, ponders New Labour, the state of faith at the Millenium, and the path that will lead the Conservatives to recovery
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Like an angry lioness that has just done battle with a pack of wolves and won, Ann Widdecombe stalked into the deserted Central Lobby, kicked off her shoes and sat down, manifesting that combination of grit and exhaustion which comes with being the hallmark voice of the opposition this summer. She is steaming - almost literally - over the Melita Norwood spy scandal and the nation knows it. We spoke after two hours of radio and television interviews when she gave Jack Straw 'what for'. The shadow home secretary deals in the sorts of moral absolutes that the nation once expected from its bishops. Uncomfortable though it is to be on the receiving end of her uncompromising certainties, there is also a sense of deep relief that such belief can not only continue to exist, but that it is no bar to high office, in politics at least. Maybe, just maybe, moral equivocation is not the only way.
'Straw now admits that he's known about this woman for nine months in which he's not told Parliament, not told the Prime Minister,' she says, the characteristic steel of her voice reinforced by girders of disgust and astonishment. 'It beggars belief that treachery of this order, of this magnitude, was not reported to NumberTen. The whole thing is the most abysmal shambles.'
On Michael Portillo, the other news story of the day, she is also uncompromising, if tight-lipped. 'I believe homosexuality to be wrong but I do not pronounce judgements on individuals. I do however believe it to be wrong.' She pauses, and adds: 'I cannot say that I find it a particularly attractive subject to speculate on at all.' The subject is closed.
And she has no doubts that the Conservatives can win the next election. 'People are bitterly disillusioned,' she says. 'They were promised the earth, and all that has been delivered is a bit of mud.'
Speaking her mind
Ann Widdecombe is gifted with a rare ability - the knack of delivering the short, pithy and pertinent pronouncement. Perhaps this is why Weidenfeld and Nicolson has bought her first novel, 'The Clematis Tree', and an unwritten second novel, for £100,000. Her book is about the pressures facing a family with aseverely disabled child as a bill legalising euthanasia passes through Parliament.
We might disagree with Miss Widdecombe, but we never forget. Michael Howard suffered by being on the receiving end of this. More recently, in January, in a book of tributes to the late Cardinal Basil Hume, she claimed the Cardinal was privately contemptuous of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey. 'Those who know him say his attitude to George Carey verges on the contemptuous in private,' she wrote. There was hurried bridge-rebuilding between the Cardinal's Archbishop's House in Ambrosden Avenue and Lambeth Palace on the other side of the Thames. But she has no regrets about her comments. 'They were truthful and I stand by what I said. I do not want to add anything.'
Faith at the Millenium
Behind the scenes, she has been working hard on one of the issues close to the heart of Cardinal Hume - the battle to have a Christian prayer said by Dr Carey in the Millennium Dome on millennium eve. The Archbishop had threatened to boycott the party if the demands were not met. It was recently announced that he is to be given a slot at 11.15pm to lead the nation in prayer. Miss Widdecombe is not satisfied. 'It is a workable compromise but it is pretty pathetic. I believe the whole tone of the celebration should have been predominantly Christian, otherwise it does not mean anything,' she says. 'It is 2,000 years of Christianity. Two thousand does not measure anything else. Other religions simply do not understand us, why we are so loath to make this our own, big festival. The other faiths would not be so loath, and we would not expect them to be.'
This is in a context of a society that has become vastly more secular. 'There is a huge ignorance about the Christian faith, which is why I think the Alpha course has proved so popular. Undeniably the State is not as close to the Church as it used to be. The churches have had a most enormous struggle to get a prayer at the heart of the millennium ceremony.'
Figures were published at the time of Cardinal Hume's death earlier this year suggesting he presided over a large decline in church attendance. Miss Widdecombe, herself a convert to Catholicism, defends him. 'What you have to look at is the relative strength of the churches. Catholicism is immeasurably stronger than it was before Cardinal Hume took over. The atmosphere today is one in which it is perfectly respectable to be a Catholic, which it was not before.'
She does concede there has been a decline in Mass attendance, but argues that Church of England attendancehas also fallen. She goes so far as to say CofE attendance has fallen even further than RC attendance, a statement that is difficult to dispute as the established church has stopped publishing its figures. 'We live in an increasingly secular age,' she says. 'The real test is that a church that is not supported by the State has held up immeasurably well. Cardinal Hume left it in a state immeasurably stronger than the one he found it in.'
Her religious faith is a defining factor in her life, and she is infuriated by anything which she believes smacks of hypocrisy, or a less-than-uncompromising regard for the truth. Take the issue of animal rights and abortion, and recent debates in the Commons on foxhunting. 'If you watch what went on in the chamber, the very people most vociferous for killing the unborn child were vociferous for saving the unborn fox. There is a terrible warping of priorities. I think it is logical if, like me, you look after both. But it certainly isn't logical to look after the rights of animals and write off the rights of the unborn child. I do not know how that position is reached. It seems to me impossible.' She is, she says, talking entirely about Labour members. And this is where her optimism comes in. 'I think we will win next time, even if Tony Blair calls an early election.' This is not a born optimism but one based, she says, on logic. 'They are not delivering on health service waiting lists, education, law and order.'
She is concerned at the poor Conservative representation in urban Britain, but does not regard this as a permanent phenomenon. 'The last election produced an extraodinary result. We are not going to see that result repeated. I see no reason why, when the next election comes along, we won't once more have MPs in these areas.'
Lessons of defeat
She believes defeat was inevitable in 1997. 'I think it happened for political reasons. But the scale of it was exacerbated by the numbers who stayed at home. It was further exacerbated by the Referendum Party.' The Boundaries Commission did not help much either, she says. But as far as disadvantaged parts of Britain go, she firmly believes the Conservatives have the answer. 'The message is that we recognise the state cannot do it all and are looking for ways of supplementing what the state does.' To insist that only the state should run, for example, the Health Service, limits what is available and therefore does not help the dispossessed, she argues. 'The Single Regeneration Budget we introduced brought enormous benefit to some of the most deprived areas in the country. Labour has changed it completely. Again, with education, by allowing schools to become grant maintained and run their own affairs, we empowered people. There were vast numbers of things we were doing that were actually helping people to overcome disadvantages.'
She cites research showing that whereas Labour is losing support in urban areas, the Conservatives are gaining. 'I can point to council election gains in non-rural areas. I think people are bitterly disillusioned.' But she is appaled by the suggestion that Conservatism in the 1980s was too negative, was against things rather than for things, lacked hope. 'If you look at what we did in the 1980s we introduced the first comprehensive in-work benefit, Family Credit, specifically to assist people on low wages with families. That benefit was not available to people who did not have families. We recognised the disincentive to marriage in thearrangements for mortgage income tax relief. If two individuals were cohabiting they each enjoyed the full value of the exemption. But if a married couple were applying for a mortgage based on joint incomes they both got onelot of relief. We recognised that and reversed it. We put marriage and the family at the head of our priorities. The 1980s conferred hope. Look at things like the sale of council houses, the issue of shares. People had hopes of their own homes, their own investments, things they had never had before. We did that.'
And to Conservatives at the conference, she has this to say: 'No substitute has ever been found for caring capitalism in supplying the needs of the weakest in society while allowing the country to grow.' But somebody always has to pay the inn-keeper. She stops and adds, an an explanation, that she is referring to the story of the Good Samaritan. She has suddenly remembered that she cannot assume familiarity with the Bible. Yet she has used an analogy that fits her well. She has the courage to say and do what she believes to be right. This does not always make her the most popular of politicians, although it inspired enough confidence in William Hague for him to leave her in charge during his holiday. Ann Widdecombe is not one to walk by on the other side of the road - a useful type of person to have around in a crisis.
Related links
Ann Widdecombe's homepage
The Ruth Gledhill Interview: David Hope
The Ruth Gledhill Interview: John Major
The Ruth Gledhill Interview: Marvin Olasky
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