Tom's Notes—Ann Widdecombe's In Confidence

I like a program called "In Confidence." It's an interview program on SkyArts—a gem of a channel (2 channels) by the way, probably sneaked in on the coat-tails of all that football revenue. I say it's an interview program, though it's really more like a confessional. The presenter Laurie Taylor annoys me a bit - a bit smug for me - but he does a good priestly job; the pitch black no frills backdrop is the point though—what encourages confession. In Confidence is what Charlie Rose would be like if Charlie weren't interrupting or ass-kissing his guests all the time.

Last night it was Ann Widdecombe's turn against the black background.

And for once Laurie Taylor didn't look smug. He was utterly outdone.

People like Laurie get it, at some level: they know they are twatty, if only through a glass darkly. It's when you get a desperately stupid person like Ann that thinks they are one ahead of you, when really they are one behind. It's then, and with people like that, that stolid misanthropy is the only option.

I attempt not to be such a booer. I watch In Confidence to be a voyeur: I'm interested in the people and their fame—I want to know yet more about them. I want to be impressed. But it wasn't like that with Ann Widdecombe. I began the program with adult reservation; I already knew I didn't like her, but wasn't about to let it spoil my enjoyment of the interview. I tried for about 10 minutes; but the more she spoke, the more her nutty philosophy leaked out on to the studio floor, the more my loathing welled up. No enjoyment, just contempt.

It's because she's so petty.

Small minds like Ann's find the perfect vehicle in Christianity for their version of pettiness, and the smugness that's corollary. A handcrafted system for moving the goalposts when you're wrong; a barricade wall to hide behind more infuriating than a miserly Italian defence—score a goal, close the ranks, hang on for full time. Unlike Italian defences (that are still cast-iron), Christian teaching is no longer a Trojan wall. And thank God for that. Yes, now there's no respect anymore people have to justify themselves—and it clearly angers Ann. She wants a free philosophical pass.

Well, Ann, you're not getting one. I watched you squirm under Laurie's simple cross-examination; I listened to you stutter and try to explain why saying gay men are morally wrong is not a condemnation of them; I laughed when you pleaded that other people were the problem when your words were misunderstood—understood, in other words. No, Ann, we're smarter than you'll never realize.

This seemed to be the crux of it—Ann Widdecombe is the worst case scenario of holier than thou.

For someone who likes the high-road, it's funny that Ann should have been a Conservative MP. I understand that might not make sense: religious, pro-norm, patriotic, thinks the first half of the 20th century in Britain was its cultural and moral zenith—of course she's a conservative. Sure, lets grant that. But at the core of it she's anything but. Ann is holier than thou, and being holier than thou, wants to tell you what to do. You can see the acrid smoke snaking off her words—some terrible despotism burning away behind them. She seems happiest looking at the World and saying "ugh!," judging, dispensing, having her say above all others. Not fascist, a-la Hitler; no, she likes bureaucracy, structures of power and institution: we're talking leftism, a-la Stalin. She's a left winger. She perhaps dislikes Harriet Harman so much because she likes her so much.

It wasn't the questions about her political career that revealed anything, we all know she was shit, predictably so. What revealed the most was this: Ann was a university administrator before becoming an MP. Just one detail in her life, but the telling detail. The detail that pulls all the rest into sharp focus. It needs no explanation—when you've heard all her sophomoric versions of moral philosophy and what's right and wrong, what's OK (by Ann) and what's not; when you know she was an MP, not a very good one; when you just listen to her bat on for more than 5 minutes, and then you learn she was a university administrator... it all fits perfectly.

We've all had to deal with this kind of woman once or twice. The miserable clerk at the post-office, the un-collaborative parent at the PTA, the scowling parish councillor. Provincial madams with a modicum of power. Spinsters with a desperate aspiration in them; not sad—sinister.

Ann wouldn't know, but near the end of Madonna's movie - Filth and Wisdom - the russian chap, leading his band at some dingy gig, sings "don't trust anyone who's never fucked a woman..." or words to that effect, talking about the prescriptivists of life—people like Ann Widdecombe. Yes, don't trust them, these people who have never lived the things they denigrate—things they'll label morally wrong but cowardly run away from justifying those words with action.

There's no wall for you to hind behind anymore Ann. Better start reading some books other than the Bible. And don't be so confident—it's a sin you know.