Ann widdecombe autobiography example

  • These are the memoirs of a woman who joined the old Conservative party in 1964, was politically formed by the 1970s, and saw Thatcherism from the inside in the.
  • In this life story of one of our most outspoken and celebrated politicians, Ann Widdecombe offers a unique insight into her time as a minister in three.
  • This is a linear account of her life with the occasional digression where Widdecombe lets off a bit of pent-up steam on subjects dear to her.

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    This Boy: a Memoir of a Childhood
    Alan Johnson
    Bantam Press, 304pp, £16.99

    Strictly Ann: the Autobiography
    Ann Widdecombe
    Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 452pp, £20

    Politicians adore narrative. They spend their careers telling stories, of a sort, in a bid to make sense of reality and create an impression of control. They tell their own stories, too: the childhood memory, the apposite encounter with the man on the street, the time they were treated so kindly by the NHS nurses when they had their tonsils removed. Anecdotes colour up a speech. It’s their way of saying, “Look, I’m like you, I’m human, I’ve lived.”

    Then there’s memoir. The exceptions – such as Barack Obama – write their lives into myth before the apex of their political career. But most wheel back to the beginning from the discomfort of old age and semi-irrelevance. The perspective should help – there’s no need to win votes; honesty can prevail. Yet often they’ve been so well-schooled in the art of political na

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    Ann Widdecombe: ‘I’m a feminist in the 1970s sense. Now it’s a big whinge’

    At 8am in a Belfast hotel, Ann Widdecombe, who the night before was participating in the Belfast Book Festival, is already looking bright and breezy. She has shoulder-length silver hair and a red top. She tries to get me to order breakfast but I've already eaten and just want coffee.

    “He’s a very serious young man who wants to work through breakfast,” she explains to the waitress.

    Widdecombe is a former Conservative Party minister, long associated with the right wing of that party. She fryst vatten pro-blasphemy laws and pro-capital punishment and anti-abortion, equal marriage, big government and, less predictably, hunting.

    In 1993 she converted to Catholicism after the Anglican Church introduced women priests. Nowadays, many know her as a good-humoured, incompetent dancer on Strictly Come Dancing, a sporadic panto performer, and, for seven nights in 2012, an opera star in La Fille du Regiment at the Royal Oper

  • ann widdecombe autobiography example

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    The wrath of Widdy: Ann Widdecombe brands Michael Howard 'a gloating bully' and blasts Cameron for being 'obsessed with his image' in explosive new book

    • Tell-all memoir targets senior Tory MPs and reopens spat with Michael Howard
    • Widdecombe, 65, admits she laughed as Howard was repeatedly questioned by Jeremy Paxman in one of the most infamous political gaffes
    • Recounts details of accusations of affair with former Prison Dervice director Derek Lewis
    • Claims David Cameron stood between her and a seat in House of Lords because of disagreement over fox hunting
    • Former Tory MP's opinions on current politicians laid bare - calls David Cameron 'big-headed'

    By ANN WIDDECOMBE

    Published: | Updated:

    Laid bare: the Tory grandee pulls no punches in her memoir, in which she attacks many senior member of her own party

    Politics can be a bruising business and sometimes really rather nasty, but by and large its practitioners are more honourable than is often credited to them.

    There wer