142. Remembering Ann Widdecombe

Summary

Where Politics Meets History, Episode 142: “Remembering Ann Widdecombe”
Broadcast Date: July 14, 2026
Presented by: Iain Dale and Dr. Tessa Dunlop

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Episode Overview

In this poignant and wide-ranging episode, Iain Dale and Tessa Dunlop reflect on the recent murder of Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative MP and prominent media personality. The hosts remember her legacy, discuss the personal and public reactions to her death, address the controversies and debates triggered in the aftermath, and situate current responses in a broader historical context. The discussion skillfully weaves together politics, personal reminiscence, and larger questions around public mourning, media responsibility, and changing attitudes toward women in public life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Death of Ann Widdecombe and Immediate Reactions

Timecode: 03:17 – 08:39

• Discovery and Grief: Iain shares the moment he found out (“I kept getting texts…I had to scroll down to about the fifth or sixth one before I realized they were talking about Ann Widdecombe.”—03:37). He describes his shock at her age and the subsequent revelation that she was murdered.
• Their Friendship: Although the media branded Iain as a close friend, he reflects with candor about the real nature of their connection—occasional contact, professional camaraderie, but genuine mutual respect. Tessa frames Ann’s media and public life as a vital substitute for traditional family ties (08:00).
• Supportive Nature: Ann was known for supporting those in crisis, regardless of personal cost to her reputation, exemplified by her help to Harvey Proctor during Operation Midland (05:46).

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2. Ann Widdecombe’s Life, Persona, and the Complexities of Mourning Public Figures

Timecode: 08:39 – 13:23

• On-Air Tributes and Emotional Difficulty: Iain discusses appearing on Jeremy Vine’s show and struggling to hold back tears (08:39). The necessity to balance the role of friend with that of dispassionate commentator arises (09:06).
• Media’s Role in Her Story: Questions arise as to how the circumstances of her death were handled by those scheduling her interviews, and the appropriateness of public reactions in the immediate hours following her murder (10:49 – 12:14).
• Changing the Tone of Memory: Tessa observes the “screeching of breaks” as tributes turned cautious once murder was confirmed, wondering why the cause of death should affect the tone in the first 48 hours (12:14).

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3. Controversial Reactions and the Limits of Public Discourse

Timecode: 13:23 – 24:00

• Obituaries and Social Media Pile-on:
  • Adam Boulton—criticized for using terms like “spinster” and inaccuracies about Ann’s personal life (14:34 – 15:29).
  • Peter Tatchell—tweeting “Ann Widdecombe is dead!” followed by a list of anti-LGBT votes and the word “bigot.” Iain found it “crass at best, disgusting at worst” (22:24).
• Defending Her Record: Iain passionately rebuts claims that Ann was bigoted; he shares anecdotes highlighting her support for gay friends and constituents, insisting her opposition to gay marriage stemmed from religious conviction, not animus (24:00).
• Respect in Death: Iain calls for a basic human right to “die in dignity” regardless of political disagreement (23:25).

Notable Quote:

“Surely a basic human right is to be allowed to die in dignity. And he [Peter Tatchell] didn’t give her that dignity.”
—Iain Dale (23:25)

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4. Spinsterhood, Gendered Language, and Historical Context

Timecode: 37:16 – 42:00

• Origins of ‘Spinster’: Tessa dives into the etymology and changing connotations of the word, noting its pejorative feminine weight versus the neutral or positive ‘bachelor’ for men (37:16). The hosts muse on historic expectations for unmarried women.
• Ann’s Embrace of Her Outsider Image: Ann accepted nicknames like “Doris Karloff” and showed self-deprecating humor, an ability to laugh at herself, and a refusal to chase popularity (18:51, 20:58).

Notable Quote:

“She knew that she was seen as a bit odd. And she said to me once, she said, ‘I know I'm seen as a bit odd because I am a bit odd.’ ”
—Iain Dale (20:58)

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5. Security, Age, and the Rural Context

Timecode: 29:59 – 34:55

• Discussion of Risk: Both hosts discuss growing anxiety about security for rural and elderly residents in light of Ann’s murder.
• Statistical Perspective: Tessa and Iain parse homicide rates in the UK, US, and EU to put individual tragedy in context (33:03). Iain points out the UK’s relatively low murder rate (33:14).
• Media Representation of Suspects: Tessa notes the meticulous reporting of the suspect’s race, reflecting changes in media practice post-Southport (34:55).

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6. Policing, Public Suspicion, and Media Narratives

Timecode: 34:55 – 36:44

• Criticism of Police and Speculation: The hosts decry reflexive speculation and conspiracy-mongering by some commentators about police conduct.
• Call for Discretion: Both stress that investigation sometimes requires discretion and resisting the temptation to fill the gaps with rumor.

Notable Quote:

“Sometimes you’ve just got to let them get on with their investigations.”
—Iain Dale (36:31)

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7. Public Life, Friendship, and Political Civility

Timecode: 28:44 – 29:59

• On Friendship Beyond Politics: Iain sees value in befriending political opponents, citing a lesson from Naz Shah MP:

“You have taught me that you can be friends with people with different political views and not just regard them all as enemies.” (29:03)

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8. Extra: Football, European Identity, and Warrior Iconography

Timecode: 43:20 – 48:42

• Diversion into Sport: The latter part of the episode sees Iain and Tessa lightening the mood with reflections on England’s football match, the resurgence of English players abroad, and fans’ adoption of Crusader and Viking imagery. Tessa draws sharp parallels between historic violence and modern costume (45:51).
• Playful Banter: The camaraderie and friendly teasing continue, providing a natural close to a heavy episode.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

Ann’s Loyalty:

“She was one of those people that you just knew that if you ever had a real problem or you were in trouble for whatever reason, she would come to your aid. She was... on my top 10 people.”
—Iain Dale (05:23)

On the Importance of Non-Traditional Families:

“For Ann, of course...being present on telly, doing a tour with you, being on the Jeremy Vine show, that was an extension of her family, of her friendships.”
—Tessa Dunlop (07:50)

On Tone in Death:

“If you wrote this down as a drama script...you would say, no, come on, this is a bit far-fetched. The whole thing is far-fetched, you know, and there is something about Ann, I mean, extraordinary, even in death and in this macabre way. She didn’t do things in greys, she did them in blacks and whites.”
—Tessa Dunlop (12:00)

On Ann’s Approach to Critique:

“Criticism to her was like water off a duck’s back. She knew that she was controversial and, and she wouldn’t have wished to silence.”
—Iain Dale (22:04)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:17 – The news of Ann Widdecombe’s death
• 04:31 – Describing their friendship and her character
• 08:39 – Emotional tributes and media responsibility
• 13:23 – Condemnation of Adam Boulton’s and Peter Tatchell’s public statements
• 20:58 – Ann’s self-deprecation and humor
• 24:00 – Iain’s defense of Ann’s record on LGBT rights
• 29:03 – The value of political friendship
• 33:03 – UK and international murder rates contextualized
• 37:16 – The evolution of “spinster” and gendered societal expectations
• 45:51 – Viking “warrior” imagery and the evolution of public iconography

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Tone & Language

The conversation is candid, warm, occasionally irreverent, and always intellectually curious—with Iain’s understated emotion balanced by Tessa’s historical perspective and wit. The episode is at once a personal remembrance, a political argument for civility, and a meditation on the intersection between public life, reputation, and mortality.

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Conclusion

For listeners who missed this special episode, “Remembering Ann Widdecombe” is much more than a tribute; it’s an inquiry into how we memorialize divisive figures, a lesson in examining history’s echoes in the present, and a call to recognize, in death as in life, the complexity of public personalities. The hosts conclude with the importance of perspective—on risk, reputation, and remembering those who have shaped the political landscape, for better and for worse.

Transcript

[Ian Dale]

This is a global production.

[Tessa Dunlop]

You're not a great benchmark, are you? Because if one of my accusations, indeed criticisms of you, Ian, is your chumminess with the entire political class, so that

[Ian Dale]

you should make that quite clear. Whereas I, I think that's actually a strength. I mean, Naz Shah, the Labour MP for Bradford west, she said, you have taught me so much that you can be friends with people with different political views and not just regard them all as enemies. Well, it's been a bit of a weekend. I don't quite know where to begin with that. But before we do begin with the incredibly tragic murder of Anne Widdicombe, I have a bit of history trivia for you, Tessa. Do you know the name Tony Christopher?

[Tessa Dunlop]

No.

[Ian Dale]

He is someone who died at the weekend. He was a member of the House of Lords and he's the last serving British parliamentarian to have served in the Second World War, which I. I just thought to myself when I read that. That really does mark the end of an era, doesn't it?

[Tessa Dunlop]

That's extraordinary. How old was he?

[Ian Dale]

I. I don't know. I haven't. I just saw it on the Politico London Playbook email this morning and I haven't looked. I'd frankly never heard of him, so I haven't looked him up. But it's. It's sort of. It's a bit like, I imagine the Napoleonic wars dominated the rest of the 19th century and the. Obviously, the Second World War certainly dominated my childhood and I was born, what, 17 years after it ended. And I do think that that whole era now is in danger of being, and I might say forgotten, because still, if you. You look at all of these slightly odd television channels, like, you go down, down the, down the screen and like channel 352, history yesterday, today, or whatever they're called, there's a lot of World War II programs on that. So maybe we won't forget it in the same way that maybe we did

[Tessa Dunlop]

previous wars, but several things there. You are right to say the Napoleonic wars in some respects was a watershed that we look back to for the next hundred years. And then they were transplanted, if you like, by the subsequent two world wars in the 20th century. Definitely. I have outstanding memories of talking to very old male veterans who remember in the 1920s, still playing with soldiers that were French, not German. But interestingly, of course, the veterans from the Napoleonic wars didn't live nearly as long as. Because particularly. But not only men just didn't live as long. But when the statues to the Duke of Wellington were finally unveiled in Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively, in the 1840s and early 1850s. Of course, Wellington was still alive because he point blank refused to die. And there was a couple of doddery old veterans that also walked out to see the unveiling of the statue. Although it ought to be said that Wellington himself didn't ever go north of the border, so he didn't see himself unveiled, but he sure did know about it.

[Ian Dale]

Well, let's start off by talking about what's happened. Well, what happened, it turns out last Wednesday when Anne was killed around 1230. And we, then we, we didn't know about it. I certainly didn't know about it like everybody else until I woke up to a succession of texts on Friday morning thinking I was going to spend the whole day watching Wimbledon and football. And I kept getting texting, I'm really sorry to hear about Anne, sort of condolences and, and I had to scroll down to about the fifth or sixth one before I realized that they were talking about Anne Widdicombe. And my first thought was, but she was 78, that's no age nowadays and both of her parents died in their mid-90s. So my first thought was, well, she's had at least a decade ripped away from her. That was before we knew about the fact that she'd been murdered. And then of course the news came in the afternoon and we should clarify

[Tessa Dunlop]

for any new listeners that she was a very good friend of yours. Several people have reached out saying, passing on their thoughts because they understood about the depth of your friendship. But we, we should explain that you, you, you properly were real friends. You toured the country together, didn't you, in a most unlikely duo.

[Ian Dale]

Well, it's, I mean, I don't, it's been really awkward actually over the last few days where I've done all sorts of media on, on this and we can talk about that a bit later. But I, I've, I, I don't want to over claim. I mean, yes, she was a friend, but in a very different way to you being a friend. I mean, you and I are on the phone to each other all the time and we, we've. You've been to my house, I've been to yours. Without. It was different. I mean, I could go for months without talking to her. I mean she, she would email me every Sunday evening responding to something that she didn't agree with in my Sunday newsletter and sort of say, I can't believe you said that. That's so woke. Or do you really have to SW things like that. So I shall certainly miss those emails. But she was one of those people that you just knew that if you ever had a real problem or you were in trouble for whatever reason, she would come to your aid. She was sort of like, you know, the Samaritans have this. They advise people who, if they're thinking of taking their own life, they. They should keep a list of 10 people that they can phone and you work your way through the list. Well, she would be on my top 10 people.

[Tessa Dunlop]

If I tell you to bloody well pull yourself together.

[Ian Dale]

Well, I'm not sure she would actually, because that's. That would be. I understand exactly why you say that, but I know several people that she like Harvey Proctor, when he was going all of through. Through his issues with Operation Midland, she was a real support to him. And I know several other people who've been involved in. In those or been accused of things which they haven't done. And without any thought for her own reputation, she has sort of manned the barricades for them. And I think that's an admirable quality in anyone.

[Tessa Dunlop]

It's interesting, though, that you're worried about overclaiming your friendship, because I very much felt the same thing from someone else who was incredibly important to her in these latter years, and that's Jeremy Vine. That's how I heard about it because I've occasionally met Anne, but only in a green room context because she was a regular on the Jeremy vine show, where I go quite a lot now. They pair their opponents or sparring partners very carefully. And I think you'd agree with me that Anne is more of a man's man. They.

[Ian Dale]

They never put her on with a woman. Yeah, I'd have quite. I'd have quite liked to see you and her sparking off each other. That would have been quite entertaining. But no, they never put her on with another woman.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah, very interesting. So they didn't. And I've got to say, in the green room, and I was sort of go, good morning. You know, because she's one of their main star, I say contestants, but, you know, contributors. And she was gruff and. And a little bit intimidating, you know, if the carapace very much was present to the end. But what was interesting the last time I saw her was about ago. And you're right, the first thing I thought was that is a woman living her best life. And I always thought that of Anne because I'm aware, working extensively with veterans, how quickly we attribute to them this kind of idea of little Old people and we strip away their agency, forgetting the one thing that lives with us till we die is ego. And actually you need to feed that ego. It's particularly, but not only important for people without family. You know, you know, you get that thing where a chief exec suddenly go from telling you about their successes in the boardroom, ninth grandchild on the way in the Christmas card. But for Anne, of course, because she lived her identity outside the home a lot of the time, being present on telly, doing a tour with you, being on the Jeremy vine show, that was an extension of her family, of her friendships. And so when Jeremy said thoughts going out to her friends and family and he was clearly struggling emotionally himself, I emailed him and said, Jeremy, you were her friend and her family.

[Ian Dale]

Well, you're right. And I was on his show this morning right at the beginning, and we talked about her a little bit and then I, I ended. Well, I didn't actually realize this was going to be the end, but I ended by saying, I just want to say that she loved coming on your show. She loved the viewer interaction.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah.

[Ian Dale]

And she loved you. She regarded you as a true friend because you was always so kind to her. And sort of. I started, I mean, I've, I've gone through the week. I must have done, I don't know how many interviews I've done, probably 20 or 30. And I haven't broken down in any of them, apart from this one where my voice did start to crack and he, he cracked as well and couldn't really continue and just went on to the next item without saying goodbye. And I had him on my. I was sitting in for Matt Fry on Saturday morning, which proved to be, I mean, a great thing in many ways because I think Matt would have, I mean, Matt is an old school journalist. He, he, I think would probably been quite grateful that he wasn't there on Saturday. And I stood in for him and we did the whole program almost as tribute to her and, but I thought, well, okay, I'm, I'm on all of these programs because I was her friend, but I, I'm not here to, I mean, I felt I had to sort of have a split personality and sort of to still be me as a political, as a commentator rather than there just to emote. Because if I, if I'd done the latter, I don't think it would have gone down particularly well.

[Tessa Dunlop]

I think there are several really fascinating aspects I know from the Jeremy vine point of view and people, if they followed this story in the press will understand it that the most perplexing aspect was one of the researchers, researchers was the last person to have contact with her. And that's how the police know that she was found a day after she had been killed. Because. And you and I know, and anyone who's ever done a media interview nowadays, if it's on zoom, and you do them all the time at the moment, they ring you up, and especially if you're a bit older or chaotic, and I'm afraid I'm putting you and me into both those categories, they go, right, we've sent you the zoom link, you know, and then if you could enter in half an hour's time. And that's exactly what they did with Anna. She's a little bit intimidating. So they'd been like, you know, careful, careful. And then apparently she texts back going, you know, I can't find the email, or whatever. Oh, gosh, old age. And then they're like, anne, you haven't entered the zoom. Where are you? And they're calling her, they're calling her. They can't understand half an hour later why she's disappeared. And of course, someone has horrifically bopped her off. In the meantime, I want to talk after the break, if we could, about

[Ian Dale]

just, just on that, when I think there are some questions to ask about that whole series of events because, I mean, it is not unusual for sometimes people not to show up for an interview. I've certainly had that on my program, but it would never have occurred to me that they might have been murdered. So I think there are some people who are throwing all sorts of accusations around the ITN Channel 5 people. And I think it's totally unwarranted. They actually did more than I think many broadcasters would have done. And they did follow it up with her agent and management company. I think they have a few questions to answer because I don't think. Admittedly, I think they. They were told at like 8 o' clock on the Wednesday evening that saying, well, a bit worried, sort of what's going on? But she wasn't found until. So I think the end of the morning on the Thursday.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Was that because the agent had sent someone around or just coincidentally?

[Ian Dale]

No, no, it was the gardener that discovered her. I mean, yeah, well, how horrific must that have been?

[Tessa Dunlop]

That must have been horrific. But, but, but there are questions that it was just the. You know, there's Jeremy and he's made a big name for himself as a sort of crime writer. And this is like the most horrific sort of midsummer murder that you could, if you, if you wrote this down on paper, given Anne's extraordinary legacy, her personality, her celebrity and her politics, if you wrote this down as a drama script, you would say, no, come on, that's. This is a bit far fetched. The whole thing is far fetched, you know, and there is something about Anne, I mean, extraordinary, even in death and in this macabre way. She didn't do things in greys, she did them in blacks and whites. Do you know what I mean? This is extraordinary. But I also, I want to ask you after the break about the way in which there was a sort of screeching of breaks, because people were quite candid about remembering Anne in the public domain when they discovered she had died. Seven hours later, they discovered it, it looks like it was a murder. And suddenly there's a sort of voltiface, sort of change of heart or of the way in which we talk about someone. And I, I couldn't really understand that if you're freshly dead, via whatever means. I think one takes, it takes a breath and remembers kindly in those first 24, 48 hours. And I, and I was surprised that because of the nature of her death, that was the reason given for people retracting their words.

[Ian Dale]

I. You make a valid point and. Well, let's, let's explore that in a minute.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Welcome back. Incidentally, we're doing this on Zoomity Zoom because Ian is so in demand as Anne's friend on air, as an author of his new biography. Have I said too much? Always. Yes. And also because he has an eye appointment this afternoon he forgot to tell me about. So Ian is literally imploding. He represents the melted emoji. So. Dear Mr. Melted, let's just. I think, I think for you and for indeed many people, the two outstanding commentators who bore the wrath, or is it wrath, were Andrew, Adam Bolton, because he referred to her in a slightly glib, offhand way, as within a sort of three sentences, as a spinster, an old maid, and according to her own self description, a virgin. And then also Peter Tatchel of Stonewall. And he referred to her, I think, or her effect, or her reaction to homosexuality as bigoted. And I'm going to let you take up the narrative from here because you had, I think, personal interactions with, with both of them, those men subsequently, didn't you?

[Ian Dale]

Not with Adam. I have had. With Peter. I watched the Adam Bolton interview on Sky Live. Adam Bolton is a friend of mine. I, I have a lot of respect for him, but I was watching it and Thinking this is just crass. It was tone deaf. And his, I mean when he eventually apologized for it he, he said, well I wasn't there to offer commentary on her as a person. I was there to be basically be an obituist and sort of stick to the facts. Well he didn't stick to the facts. I don't recall her ever saying she was a virgin. I mean it was a matter of public discussion in the late 1990s because it was revealed she'd had an affair at Oxford, but that was the only love affair she'd ever had. So I'm not saying it wasn't publicly discussed but do you really talk about that on the day someone's died? I don't think you do, I don't

[Tessa Dunlop]

think, I don't think you, you use that word either. You could, you sort of refer to chased a chaste lifestyle or something more.

[Ian Dale]

But wasn't that necessarily, I thought was the worst part of it because he told a bare faced lie. Now I don't think he deliberately did that. But if you're, if you're sort of saying that you are effectively acting as her obiturist. You've got to get your facts right. And you'll remember when she was shadow, when she was a Home Office minister, she was a prisons minister and there was this massive story about the fact that she, that some pregnant female prisoners had absconded on the way from the prison to the hospital. So she decided to do something about it and she decided to put them in handcuffs for the journey. But the myth grew that she had instructed the prisons and the hospitals to handcuff or shackle them on their legs in labor. It never happened. And she sued the Daily Express over the allegation and she was very even right up to the end. She would fire off legal letters to anyone who tried to promulgate that myth, myth. So for Adam Bolton and indeed Edwina Curry to do it on the day of her death, I just thought no, that this has got to stop. And by that time this was sort of mid afternoon on Friday by, by that time I, I'd started to get a few sort of media requests saying would I do interviews? Because they, they knew that I was friends with her. And in the end I decided, okay, I'm going to go to London and do everything I can possibly do because I will not have her reputation trashed in this way. So I did, I, I mean on Friday I did ITN for their 6:30 news and News at 10 did Sky. I did Channel 4 news live in the studio. I did World Tonight. I did Newsnight and I. I found it a profoundly uncomfortable experience, if I'm.

[Tessa Dunlop]

If I'm honest, just to say I heard you on. On World Tonight and I was very impressed. I thought you got the. The tone spot on. But I suppose as an outside observer, although weirdly, vaguely implicated, because I'd met her a few times and knew how affected you and Jeremy were, and also I was curious as to that attribution all the time, of family, remembering her family. I'm like, the whole point of Anne is that she didn't conform to the nuclear family. Why do we always have to ascribe everyone this central importance of a family in the conventional sense of the word, when actually many people live their lives out with that idea of a family? And I always find that frustrating. That's a hangover from my veterans. But also, there was a brilliant PhD done, and it was called in the Shadow of Marriage. And it was about single women in the mid 20th century and their vital role in an era when there was no, for example, childcare. So actually, if you didn't have a surplus sister who was unmarried, an old maid or a spinster, as they were then referred to, you were up a gum tree. Because who did look after your children if you suddenly got ill or had something to do? Obviously most women didn't work, and that was one of the reasons, because there wasn't. But that's just. That's a kind of a side avenue. But I think you mentioned the misreporting of her shackling prisoners. And she did have this nickname, didn't she? She was referred to as Dorif Karloff. And. And she, she.

[Ian Dale]

Let me explain that. Yeah, explain that, because she totally embraced that nickname. She wanted to run for Tory leader in 2001, but she. She couldn't get the MPS. There were only two MPS that actually supported her. David Amos was one of them. I can't remember who the other one was. And Politicos, we. We commissioned badges because after this prison shackling thing, she'd been nicknamed Doris Karloff. So we just had made these badges, Doris Carlo for Tory Leader. And that was actually the first time I ever met her. She came into Politicos one day, she'd heard about these badges and she said, can I have 50 of them, please? And. And it was, it was. It's very funny. She. I mean, as I didn't know her at that point, and then I think, or maybe it was before that we'd had these Knickers done sort of politically themed knickers with sort of slightly suggestive slogans on the front, as you, as you can imagine. And we had the Ann Widdicom knickers with something of the night. Black lacy things with something of the night across the front. After her comment about Michael Howard, which actually she never said on the record again, Adam Bolton got that completely wrong. It was something she briefed, but she never actually said said it in public. It wasn't in her speech, the famous speech in the House of Commons where she brought him down. So we had these and she came into the shop one day and so I gave her a pair and she sort of roared with laughter and she said, but they're too small, they won't fit. I said, anne, the idea is not that you actually wear them. And anyway, as she was walking out the door of the shop, I realized she'd left the knickers on the counter. So I yelled out after Anne, you've forgotten your knickers. And the punchline is, and there can't be many men that have said that to Anne Widdicombe. And I used to tell this to the audiences in our evening with theater shows. And of course it brought the house down. And the thing with Ann is she was very capable of laughing at herself. She was very self deprecating and she, she knew that she was seen as a bit odd. And she said to me once, she said, I know I'm seen as a bit old because I am a bit odd.

[Tessa Dunlop]

But also she didn't caught popularity. I noticed in her, in her Dartmoor at home, some of the neighbors, I mean, it's clear she didn't sort of belong to local groups or, you know, hang out in the village shop and gossip. She put up her reform flags at election time and she was very much take me or leave me. She didn't need people to like her. And I suppose in that respect I felt perhaps the pylon in response to Adam Bolton and maybe even Peter Tatchell, was a little harsh. Because Anne and the party she latterly resided with, Reform, are all about, say it as you see it, say what you think. Anne was very clear about who she was. She did describe herself as a spinster. I heard her do that on more than one occasion. And suddenly there were this takedown of individuals who weren't certainly Adam, his obituary wasn't critical. It was quite warm. And I thought, hang on a minute. The exact thing that Anne stood for, which was not making people watch what they say. Being open and free. Free speech. Suddenly saying, people are criticizing her.

[Ian Dale]

You're right. In, in a sense, in that criticism to her was like water off a duck's back.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah.

[Ian Dale]

She knew that she was controversial and, and she wouldn't have wished to silence. But I don't wish to silence anyone. I just wish people had a bit more respect sometimes. And you cannot. I mean, Peter Tatchel, I took him on, on Twitter.

[Tessa Dunlop]

So what did he actually say? What was his original.

[Ian Dale]

The first line of his tweet was, anne Whitakem is dead, exclamation mark. Now, now, his defense was, well, that, that didn't mean that I was rejoicing in her death. I thought, well, why would you put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence, then? And then he listed all of the legislation on gay issues that she had voted against. And at the bottom, it just said bigot. Now, I mean, that, that is crass at best, just disgusting at worst. So I, I, I sort of quote, tweeted it, and I was, I was quite calm in what I said. I mean, eventually he deleted the tweet and he's emailed me privately to say, I really didn't mean that. I haven't replied yet. I, I find it unforgivable because Peter Tatchley is somebody who I respect, I have a lot of time for. My main point was you're a defender of human rights. You're an advocate of human rights. Surely a basic human right is to be allowed to die in dignity. And he didn't give her that dignity.

[Tessa Dunlop]

He didn't give her the time. I agree. It was hot off the tracks because this was prior to the, the murder investigation. I think the.

[Ian Dale]

Omg, that's erroneous. I don't care whether it was before or after.

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, because I think, I think that in a month's time, and had she not died in such deeply unfortunate and unpleasant and probably violent circumstances, it might be okay for Peter Tatchell to say that he found Anne bigoted in relation to gay issues. Because, you know, in the black and white terms of her record, she wouldn't even go to your civil ceremony, would she? Because she didn't approve of gay men marrying each other.

[Ian Dale]

I, I have tried to explain that in that I don't believe that she was homophobic. I don't believe she was a bigot. Because everything I know about her is that she has gone out of her way to help individual gay people if they, if they've been in trouble in some way. And I can give you examples of that. A lot of her closest friends were gay. And this guy, Christian Sweeting, that's being quoted in all the newspapers, he's gay. Andrew Pierce, Connor Burns, me. I said to her once, you do realize you're the biggest in the Conservative Party, don't you? She roared with laughter. She said, yes, I love them all. Now, bigoted people don't. I mean, if you are truly bigoted, you are very discriminatory. She never discriminated against individual gay people. Her. She was entirely guided by her religious beliefs on these issues and therefore she could not support things like gay marriage. Now, having said that, and yet, no, she, I, I had a bit of a dilemma in 2008. I thought, well, do I invite her or not? I thought, I know she's not going to come, but if I don't invite her, that's actually more upsetting, I think. So I did invite her and sure enough, the letter came. Really sorry, busy that weekend. I thought, fine. And then her secretary a few days later, mistakenly copied me into an email that Ann had sent her, asking her to let me down gently because she didn't want to hurt me. Now, again, that's not the sign of somebody who's bigoted in 2019. I interviewed her and I said, but would you reverse gay marriage if you got into power with reform? Don't be so preposterous. Of course I wouldn't. You can't sort of take away something that you've given people. It would be absolutely chaos. And I was quite surprised by that because I thought, well, if you stand by your religious conviction, surely you would want to reverse it.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Can I say a better political antenna than Keir Starmer's Labor Party, who immediately took away the. The heating alliance.

[Ian Dale]

Yes, quite. But I mean, the clincher for me is my friend Ashley Crossley, who was selected in Falmouth and Campbell in Cornwall in 2003, hadn't told them he was gay. Then they found out and they, they made his life a living hell and they tried to deselect him. The Conservative Party asked me to then sort of, sort of talk to him and guide him through it, which I did. And anyway, I happened to. I, I mentioned this to Anne one day, not really thinking she would do anything about it, and she said, right, what's his number? So I gave. Gave her his number. I don't know whether it was the next day, but it was certainly in a. Within a few days, she was on a train down to Falmouth and took the local association to task in public for what they were trying to do. Now, does that strike you as the action of a bigoted woman?

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, but you know, Ian, I think some of her politics as well felt quite unforgiving. She did have some unfortunate phraseology around. Maybe there'll be a cure for gayness. Do you remember she came up with that quite recently in about 2019 or indeed the idea of being enslaved by the EU. I think that and Anne herself, you've said it, you know, know, she was there to push the envelope, she was there to make us think differently, she was there to challenge and that sometimes meant she span on the line of acceptability and that's why I found this

[Ian Dale]

whole idea she span on the line of liberal acceptability. Yeah, but this is really, I think one of the lessons that we should learn from the last few days is that the unkind comments that have been made about a 78 year old little old lady often attributing views and thoughts to her that I don't believe that she had. Well, fair enough. But I, I compared this the other day to. Because somebody said, oh, well, I bet if Jeremy Corbyn died, you'd be saying exactly the same thing as these people. I said, no, I wouldn't actually. And I, you're not going to like this, but I think that there is and I don't think there will. Look, they're always going to be extremists on both wings of the position, polit of politics who say terrible things. But this, the terrible things have been said about Anne often are by people who you wouldn't have expected them to. But in the social media age that people sort of seem to think that they can say anything and there's no consequence. If Jeremy Corbyn, God forbid, died tomorrow, I don't think that people on the right would react in that kind of way. I genuinely don't. But bar the odd exception, I mean, I mean, maybe I'm not the best person to talk about this because I know Jeremy Corbyn, I've actually, I've always gone quite well with him and I would be sad if he died.

[Tessa Dunlop]

But you're not a great benchmark, are you? Because if one of my accusations, indeed criticisms of you, Ian, is your chumminess with the entire political class, you've made that quite clear.

[Ian Dale]

Whereas I, I think that's actually a strength. And actually several people have said that to me over the last few days. They said, what I like about you is that you do. I mean, Naz Shah, the Labor MP for Bradford west, who interviewed me at the Bradford Literary Festival on Saturday. What a lovely place Bradford is, by the way, the city center, the way they've redeveloped that. But anyway, that's a discussion for another time. She said, I'm so glad that I've read your book, because, she said, you have taught me so much. You have taught me that you can be friends with people with different political views and not just regard them all as enemies. Do you know, I thought the Devon and Cornwall Police Crime Commissioner, I can't remember her name. I thought she said something very, very clever yesterday. She said, can we please avoid speculating about the motives and circumstances? Fine. Do it in your kitchen, do it in your own homes. I understand that's human nature to do that, but don't do it in public. So do. I'm not going to go any further.

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, don't do it. But I was just interested by Farage, obviously referring to the kind of state of the nation because of this violent, fatal attack on Anne. And I think genuinely, people in rural areas, and I grew up in one similar to Dartmoor, more remote, where none of us locked our homes. I didn't know what a key was until I left home. Didn't lock our cars, didn't lock homes. And it's true, the only theft was a bike. Once my little brother lost his bike, we were like, oh, my God, someone's stolen a bike. In the end, it was just that my little brother, or was it my big brother, had got pushed and he'd gone to the local pub and he'd left the bike at the pub and he'd forgotten he'd done it. Nobody had stolen the bike full stop. But what's interesting is, understandably, now there will be a fear factor around particularly. But not only older people living generally like Anne, without real security. Somebody apparently said she should get an electronic gate. I totally understand why she didn't. The whole point, you go to live

[Ian Dale]

in darkness as preposterous to have. I mean, she did have CCTV cameras, but if. If I'd sat her down, said, and I really think that you should have a policeman standing outside your house all the time. She said, stuff and nonsense.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah.

[Ian Dale]

She just wouldn't. And we. And this is where I thought. I mean, Andrew Rossendale, who was on Newsnight with me, I thought, got it completely wrong. I mean, where do we draw the line? She. She's not a serving politician. She'd left parliament in 2010. I mean, if we're really saying that Any public figure who's. Who's left, politics. Well, though she came back to as a Brexit party mep. I mean, you can't mitigate all risk. You just can't. And I think most people understand that.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah, 100%. But I think it's also important, partly because of the optics, that Nigel Farage, in his very clever way, because he is a clever man, has managed to sort of draw from this one horrific event. Actually, the homicide rate in Britain has. It's not plummeted, but it's fallen significantly. It's the lowest it's been since 20. Okay, so 2025, the Office of National Statistics, there were 535 homicide offenses in the year ending March 2025. That is a homicide rate of 8.8 murders per million people. So I think my worry is it's a bit like, you hear of, you know, one man being sucked out of an airplane window, which was that freak event last week. And now we all think, oh, my God, it's going to exacerbate the fear of flying when we know it's much safer than, for example, traveling on a road. And you hear of this one very highly publicized and reported murder. And the implication is, none of us are safe in our houses. And that's. Anne was deeply, deeply unlucky.

[Ian Dale]

Well, we don't know whether she was unlucky or targeted. Deliberately targeted.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah, but to be one of the 8.8 in a million people means you're bloody unlucky.

[Ian Dale]

Ian, I've just looked up on ChatGPT, so treat this with skepticism if you like, but do you know what the rate per million of the murder rate per million in America is?

[Tessa Dunlop]

I would think because of their guns, the murder rate in a million is. The murder in America is nearer to 100 per million.

[Ian Dale]

I would think 59.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah.

[Ian Dale]

Well, okay, so that's six times higher than the rate in this country. Yeah, I mean, like you, I would have probably estimated a bit more than that, but I don't know how we stand compared to other European. Actually, I can tell you how we stand with other European countries. It's helpfully brought it up for me. Canada is 21 per million, Australia 8, Germany 8, and France 15. So we've got half the murder rate of France, roughly the same as Germany, much less than Canada. Scotland is England and Wales. What it says here, England and Wales is 10 to 11. But maybe this is a little. This is for 2024, and Scotland was 9 to 10. So a little bit less than England And Wales.

[Tessa Dunlop]

So the other thing that I was talking about with my Italian neighbors, fanciful knowledge. They were very gloating last night because of sinners victory at Wimbledon. I said it's because you're only overcompensating because you weren't in the World cup. Which is perhaps true.

[Ian Dale]

How cruel.

[Tessa Dunlop]

They. I said, he doesn't look very Italian, does he, Sinner? They said, no, maybe he's a little bit German. He comes from the, the part of Italy up in the north. Anyway, we won't go into sinner's genesis, his ethnicity. But what's interesting was the, I felt the racial profiling. Every single report on Anne Widdicombe suspected and arrested perpetrators one released subsequently. White, white male. White male, white male, white male, white male. And the Italian neighbor said, oh well, if it was the around in Italy, you would only ever hear if it was a blackmail. A blackmail, A blackmail. And I wondered, you know, is, is that always the case? Do we, oh, do we always front and center the race that way?

[Ian Dale]

Yeah, we do now. It's changed since Southport. Yeah, yeah, it absolutely is. So there have been other, there have been other things where they've said an Asian or a black male. So I know people have commented on the fact that they were insistent that it was white. Well, I mean they're stating a fact and that what they. After Southport, what they decided was they didn't want people to speculate or draw the wrong conclusions so they've just decided to be upfront about it. Now I, I think what that there is an issue here where you've got people like the dreadful Matthew Goodwin already. Well, in fact he was doing this on Saturday. He already sort of saying, well, we've got, the police have got to tell us more. We, we need to have the CCTV footage released, etc, etc, trying to put into people's heads that the police were up to something here. I mean, just by insinuation and again I thought no, I'm going to take him on on this. So I did. And then of course his little acolytes sort of have a go at me, which is fine. I think it's really bad to just assume wrongdoing in the police. If there is evidence of wrongdoing, absolutely criticize them. But not until, I mean, I don't know what more they could have done. They've done what since the, since Saturday afternoon, they've done at least four or five different briefings which they didn't have to do. And admittedly one or two of them, I'M thinking, well, what's the point of this? Because you haven't actually told us anything new, or that we don't know anyway, but that they're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah, I agree.

[Ian Dale]

And sometimes you've just got to let them get on with their investigations.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah. And. And actually, to detect sometimes means you can't also enunciate. You know, detection sometimes requires discretion.

[Ian Dale]

But do you remember in one of the Sherlock Holmes novels, Sherlock Holmes was very dismissive of Devon and Cornwall, police described, I mean, basically saying they were all yokels and didn't really know what they were doing. And I think there's always that suspicion that some of these rural police forces aren't quite up to the job in the way that a metropolitan police force would be.

[Tessa Dunlop]

I also wanted to look up the word spinster because I wondered when it became a pejorative term. No, I wanted to know the history, the genesis of the word and when it became a pejorative term. Do you think? I mean, it doesn't take a genius to work out where the word comes from.

[Ian Dale]

Oh, I hadn't even never thought about where it came from. Where does it come from? I'm not a genius.

[Tessa Dunlop]

14th century. Come on. The clue's in the first bit of the word. Are you not a scrabbler?

[Ian Dale]

Only in German.

[Tessa Dunlop]

A woman who spins a female spinner of thread, literally. Unmarried women were expected to occupy themselves with spinning, hence in documents.

[Ian Dale]

Spinning didn't start in the 14th century, did it?

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, but. But there's spinstory, that the word first was used or written down in the. In the 14th. But actually in documents from the 1600s to the early 1900s, the word came to be the legal designation in England of all unmarried women's daughter, downwards.

[Ian Dale]

I think it still is, isn't it? I mean, that's the legal definition of an unmarried woman.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Common law, but it's not. Certainly not in legal practice now.

[Ian Dale]

I think it's. I think it may well be, Ian.

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, no, common law is different from legal practice now. It's very much seen as pejorative for a woman beyond marrying age.

[Ian Dale]

I think you'll find that in, like the Marriage Act. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, so don't. I mean, I'm supposing here, rather than informing. I. I suspect that the word spinster is still included in legislation, maybe predating

[Tessa Dunlop]

perhaps mid 19th century and. And when people haven't.

[Ian Dale]

Well, it was a word that was in common usage in the 60s and 70s.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah.

[Ian Dale]

I mean, now it's. Now, you see, you described it as pejorative and I, when you said that, I was thinking, is it. It's old fashioned, abso. But is it pejorative?

[Tessa Dunlop]

But hang on. We opened this pod talking about Adam and one of the criticisms of Adam was the fact he ascribed.

[Ian Dale]

But he, he included that word in a series of other words which taken together, I would say was quite misogynistic.

[Tessa Dunlop]

I think that spinster is quite a misogynistic.

[Ian Dale]

Yeah, I think it, I think you're right. It has probably come to be seen in that way. I, I don't disagree with you on that, but I think it's sort of more in common usage than you might like to think.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Well, I'm sure under the wire, not publicly on sky, in an obituary immediately after somebody's death, but certainly my teenage daughter. I mean, the word would bring her out in hives. I mean, that generation ain't going anywhere near a spinning wheel. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Ian Dale]

Know your place.

[Tessa Dunlop]

It is interesting that it hasn't had the same impact on a man. The equivalent for a man, of course, is bachelor.

[Ian Dale]

You know, I can't. I'm trying to remember what the word for spinster is in German. I'm going to look it up now because I. Back in the day I would have absolutely known what that word spinster in German is.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Anyway, I'm going back to my thesis, which is that somehow that what jungfa,

[Ian Dale]

because jungfrau means virgin. So jungfa is a sort of, well, derivation of that, I suppose.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Old virgin.

[Ian Dale]

Yeah.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Or big virgin.

[Ian Dale]

Well, it doesn't really matter.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Again, it's interesting because I've been doing a big deep dive at the moment into Elizabeth I and the way in which she turned in her virginity or her chastity into a celebration. So she was the antithesis of spinster, even though she was the spinster matriarch of England. So it's fascinating the way in which being single as a woman could be cast in the 1500s into this iconic form that was miles away from the derivation of the word that's being ascribed to Anne posthumously. So I, I just thought it's quite interesting. It's not that every time a woman who is single and chooses not to marry in history has been marginalized because we have some of our greatest examples of leadership, female leadership in the form of a chaste woman, partly because getting married, of course, watered down their path power in a way that it didn't the other way around. You know, if. If a king married a. A woman, then, you know, he got lots of sort of soft furnishings and pretty pictures. Whereas if a queen married a man, she had to share her power with either a foreigner or some jumped up little duke. So it was. It's always more compromising. But I just thought it is quite interesting to look into spinster and to think the, the equivalent hasn't happened to the word bachelor. Like if you know of your single friends, would they take offenses? It's slightly old fashioned, isn't it? It suggests a dandy, but it's not negative.

[Ian Dale]

I think that, I think there is. Is it seen as pejorative? It's a word that's fallen out of common usage. I don't think many single men in their twenties would describe themselves as bachelors. They would just say they were single just as women would.

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, but again, it's a slightly older Manny and I think it's a moneyed man, a bachelor pad, you know, someone

[Ian Dale]

who's lived a bit or being a confirmed bachelor. We all know what that means.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah. Player.

[Ian Dale]

No, it means you're gay.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Oh, does it? I thought it meant you on Tinder.

[Ian Dale]

No.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Oh, that's very old fashioned. Confirmed bachelor. That's your world in the sort of 70s.

[Ian Dale]

Yeah, quite.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Oh, Ian, the confirmed bachelor. Nudge, nudge.

[Ian Dale]

Well, absolutely. Whenever that phrase was said, you could almost see someone doing a little bit of a wink. Get my drift? Right? A few things to talk about before we finish. I just want to say thank you to all the Bradford Literary Festival people. It was a really good event and I met a listener. Dino or Dino. It's Dino, isn't it?

[Tessa Dunlop]

It? I have no idea. You're the one who met him. But he was attracted to the pod through my left leaning Instagram account. Okay, Dino, regular commentator, very pro eu, has texted me in the wake of your grand arrival and performance in Bradford and said, you know something? Ian didn't once promote the podcast. Tessa, you need to have a go at him.

[Ian Dale]

You're a. I. I am severely admonished. We obviously have to mention the football and. Did you watch the Norway match?

[Tessa Dunlop]

Yeah, I had a terrible hangover yesterday because I went to babysit the Italian neighbors with a bottle of pink wine which had already had some pink wine from. And in fact I started watching the football at 10 o', clock, getting a bit tired and I thought, well, I'll just get Mara to bring around the rest of that bottle. And somehow because the match went on for so long and it was so boring. It all jumped down my throat. All of the wine just jumped down my throat with.

[Ian Dale]

With no assistance at all. How. How weird is that? Living wine.

[Tessa Dunlop]

I felt hellish the next day.

[Ian Dale]

Well, I I of train to get back from Bradford in time to get to my hotel to watch the match and the train was of course delayed, so I missed the first six minutes. But I didn't think it was a boring match. I thought it was really fascinating, a very tactical match and it was a bit slow because of the heat. But I mean, Jude Bellingham has become an absolute legend, hasn't he?

[Tessa Dunlop]

It's interesting that more English players now go and play in the continental leagues. So here he's been a big fixture in Germany and now for Real Madrid in Spain. He speaks German and Spanish and he's only 23.

[Ian Dale]

Spanish very well.

[Tessa Dunlop]

And I definitely think it helps them not get the fear, especially when they're behind, if they've got this broader perspective on life out with their own country. You know, by going to European countries, by having a life outside of England, I think it almost takes the pressure off some of them.

[Ian Dale]

Well, I think he's the only one that. Of the first 11 that has. Although of course Anthony Gordon, who everyone's saying resembles Princess Diana, he just. Somebody did a meme with a picture of him looking a little bit. Diana is saying, I just want to be the player of people's hearts.

[Tessa Dunlop]

Nice Harry Kane for ages.

[Ian Dale]

Oh, no, he's. Yeah, of course, you're right. Now he's in Germany, isn't he? I don't think this is going to be an increasing phenomenon. In fact, it was quite embarrassing when we had very few players who were playing abroad. But of course now we've got. We're playing Argentina in the semi final on Wednesday, where I've got to negotiate with my boss as to maybe I could put to pre record in the last hour or something. We'll see how that goes. And of course, already the. The Falklands imagery is starting. There's a very funny meme that someone put on Instagram yesterday, headline referee chosen for England Argentina. And they mocked up Margaret Thatcher in a referee's uniform, which did tickle me something.

[Tessa Dunlop]

I bet it did. But what's interesting is the warrior iconography that's used by fans. So Norway, forgive me, but because of Lindisfarne and, and just St Cuthbert and knowing a little bit about history, the Danes, you know, come up our rivers, behead our Anglo Saxons, cause absolute havoc, particularly smashing into monasteries and unprotected parts of our coastal heritage and are known for being really violent. So when I see the Norwegians kind of really leaning into their Viking heritage, I think, all right, then, well, maybe they were softer, these blonde boys. So I Google it and no, according to all the archaeological sites, the way in which the skulls were damaged and smashed by Norwegian Vikings was much worse than the way in which the Danes killed their victims. And actually, their weapons of war were far more brutal. And it's fascinating, isn't it? How long do you have to wait before you can turn your genocidal predecessors into something worthy of celebration and costume? That's my question to you, Ian, in.

[Ian Dale]

Well, I don't know, but, I mean, bear in mind, the Falklands War was. What was that? 18, 20, 42 years ago, 44 years ago. I mean, there. It's still. I mean, it's quite formative in. In my life, and I suspect it was the same for a lot of people in Argentina. But you. You sort of look at the vox pops that people use, and, I mean, the Argentinian ones that I've seen have actually all been quite good. I think a lot of them, they like England. And I, I. It's going to be an amazing match. I think it really will be. And you think we're one match away from the final? I mean, that would be just amazing, just to say.

[Tessa Dunlop]

So I was, as I said, babysitting Italian children grown up in London, so they support England. Their parents come back from the concert they were at and they were like, we were watching it on the bus. We just don't like that bit of English fandom. And, And I. And they.

[Ian Dale]

I was thinking you say Norwegian fandom because that's what they were doing.

[Tessa Dunlop]

No, yeah, but. But they were. I think there was quite a lot of similarities, in fact, not just the red and white, but between the way in which Norway and England were representing themselves. And that isn't a criticism in the stadium, but at one point, I couldn't work out whether they were Norwegian or English. And of course, a lot of them are dressed up as Templars, all about the St. George's Cross, this kind of Knights Templar heritage, which totally confused the Italians because they're like. But why are English fans dressing up as Knights Templar? They're French and they're right, they are French. French. I don't understand when or why English fans appropriated the idea of the Templar and the crusader being English. Also, by the way, hugely violent. And they were reprimanded for the costumes, weren't they? When at the last World cup was played out in Qatar, that it was deeply insensitive that these English crusaders were rocking up to watch their football team.

[Ian Dale]

It's interesting that FIFA haven't reprimanded the Argentinian football team for the line in one of the songs that they were all singing, sort of about getting the Falklands back because players aren't supposed to get involved in politics. So we will see. It's going to be, well, it's either going to be a fan, one of the best evenings on Wednesday or just an abject failure. But you can't say that this team have failed in this World Cup. They've got to the semi finals, they're in the top four in the world. That is an achievement whether they get to the final or not. You've been listening to a global original podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please do leave a review wherever you get your podcasts from. I host four other podcasts which I hope you might like to try too. Ian Dale All Talk, which is an interview podcast every week, presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and dictators, which again is a weekly podcast covering at the moment 64 dictators, one a week and cross question and Ian Dale the whole show. And of course you can listen to my LBC show live from 7 to 10pm Monday to Thursday on FM in London on digital radio or all over the world on Global Player or your smart speaker. See you next time. Goodbye.