Next stop, Songs of 賞賛する!

Waltzing her way into the nation's hearts on 厳密に has given Ann Widdecombe a taste for TV stardom. But her ideal 職業 would be a Sunday night show - without the sequins

By Rebecca Hardy for MailOnline
Updated: 22:30 BST, 26 November 2010

Ann Widdecombe is having a ball. In fact, she tells me, she hasn't had やめる so much fun in years. 井戸／弁護士席, perhaps there have been 'bits' of fun, but nothing like the months she's spent in the 武器 of her 厳密に Come Dancing partner, Anton Du Beke.

Which is where she is when I 会合，会う her. And my, what a sight. That mesmerising 破産した／（警察が）手入れする seems to have a mind of its own. (Think two unrestrained 玉石s.)

And those tiny baby-doll feet (size two-and-three-４半期/4分の1s) in nude-coloured satin dancing shoes - 井戸／弁護士席, they pretty much do their own thing too, as Anton tries to steer her around a dance studio in Newton Abbot, Devon.

厳密に entertainment: Ann Widdecombe hasn't has so much fun in years

But it's the look on her 直面する that touches me. So much so that as she 'galumphs' (her word) across the 木造の 床に打ち倒す 大虐殺ing the foxtrot, there's a lump in my throat.

Ann, you see, seems to be blissfully, wondrously happy. Starry-注目する，もくろむd. Gooey. Yup, the nation's scariest maiden aunt 現実に does girly. 攻撃を受けやすい even. But について言及する it, and ouch.

'攻撃を受けやすい?' she barks. 'Rubbish. I thought I was just having a jolly good time. If I wa nt to put on a pantomime 行為／法令／行動する, it is 完全に my choice. If people say I 欠如（する） dignity, I say it doesn't 事柄. I've retired from politics so I can do 正確に／まさに what I like - and I want to have some fun. I don't like this introspection and 分析 of 動機 all the time. I'm a very bad 支配する to interview.'?

But she's not. In this most 明らかにする／漏らすing of interviews, I find her to be a compassionate, 極度の慎重さを要する woman who, while she doesn't do bleeding heart - God forbid - has certainly had her heart touched.

Take this I'm-having-such-fun thing. 'I 港／避難所't had such a 長引かせるd period of fun since university,' she says, unaware of how sad this sounds, given that she's now 63.

When I point this out, she says: 'There have been bits when I've said, "Yes, that was fun," but I 港／避難所't had so much 長引かせるd fun since, say, the long vacations at university.' Oh? What did she do during those vacations?

'I used to work to get some money, and then I used to travel.' With, it turns out, the only man she's ever loved, physics student Colin Maltby, who is now a 59-year-old retired 銀行業者 and happily married.

The couple met at Oxford when Ann was 24 and 熟考する／考慮するing politics, philosophy and 経済的なs. They 時代遅れの for three years, travelling together to Portugal and Morocco, though always sleeping in separate rooms.?

'Did I want to marry him?' she says. 'At some 行う／開催する／段階 I think I did.' They separated すぐに after leaving university and, within three months, he was engaged to another woman.

'It's 井戸／弁護士席 known I was in love at Oxford but it wore itself out,' she says with a shrug. 'It wasn't the happiest moment of my life, but it was a long way from 存在 the unhappiest.

'So what? Am I th e only person in the world who had a romance that didn't work out?'

No, but one of the few women to have let it put them off men for life.

Ann, in her 青年, was a willowy, doe-注目する，もくろむd woman with the tiniest of waists. Surely there was the 適切な時期 to 落ちる in love again?

'説 I might have had 適切な時期s 示唆するs that I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to and that there was someone 明確な／細部. There wasn't. Look, this was chance as much as choice. He didn't turn up, but it wasn't a 優先 to go out and 前向きに／確かに look. Now, had I really 手配中の，お尋ね者 to get married I would have gone and looked. I would have been much more on the 警報. But I wasn't, and it's no good asking why. It happened at Oxford; it didn't happen after Oxford. It might have happened - I never 始める，決める my 直面する against it - but it didn't.'

What about having children? 'I'd have liked children but it didn't happen. I certainly wouldn't have had any outside marriage.'

Now Ann is, of course, a 深く，強烈に 宗教的な woman with an unwavering moral compass, whose strong 見解（をとる）s 延長する to 存在 anti-abortion and against equal 権利s for homosexuals. Indeed, when she agreed to do 厳密に she had it written into her 契約 that she would not do anything she considered immodest. In fact, Ann doesn't really do sex at all.

Doesn't she 行方不明になる physical intimacy? 'No,' she says. 'From time immemorial there have been people who have been やめる happy to do without it. If I'd 行方不明になるd it, 推定では I'd have said: "権利, this is a big part of my life." Anyway, it's my 商売／仕事. It doesn't 影響する／感情 how I 発射する／解雇する any public 義務, and it doesn't 影響する／感情 how I 成し遂げる on the dancefloor.'

Having a ball: Ann on the 厳密に dancefloor last week with Anton Du Beke

But she looks so, dare I say it, loved-up when she's in Anton's 武器. Surely, we all like a good old cuddle.

'You're する権利を与えるd to believe that,' she says. 'It isn't important to everybody. Are you 説 poor old Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa and some of the other women who have made such enormous 出資／貢献s to the world - poor old them that they didn't have any of that? No - rubbish.' Florence Nightingale? Mother Teresa? Is this what 動機づけるs her, self-sacrifice 国境ing on the saintly?

'Me? I'm a grumpy soul,' she says. But again, scratch beneath the surface and she's not. Take what she has to say about the death of her 単独の sibling, Malcolm, from 癌 of the oesophagus a few weeks ago.

Ann and her brother, a former Anglican vicar, were very の近くに. She was in rehearsals for 厳密に when she heard he'd died.

'One of the last 行為／法令／行動するs of his consciousness was turning his 長，率いる に向かって the television to watch me 成し遂げる the salsa. The next day he lapsed into a sleep but he didn't wake up,' she says.

'A couple of weeks before - the waltz week - he'd been 権利 as rain. He was 完全に enjoying watching me get 運ぶ／漁獲高d around the dance 床に打ち倒す.

'My 即座の reaction was to come out of the 競争. It was the family - my sister-in-法律 and his chil dren - who 説得するd me not to. They said it had given him such joy, so I carried on.'

Did she weep? Rail against God? 'I don't visit what's inside on everybody else,' she says. 'And I see no 推論する／理由 to do so. When I got the news, I went home and that was it. Whether I cried for my brother or not is my 商売／仕事 - like the question of my virginity.'

Needless to say, she didn't want について言及する made of Malcolm's death on the show. 'I didn't want any fuss,' she harrumphs. 'But they were 極度の慎重さを要する. That week Anton and I were the first to find out we were staying into the に引き続いて week. 普通は they keep us waiting. That was 肉親，親類d of them.'

Ann is visibly touched when she tells me this. 親切 is not something she experienced a lot of in her political career. In fact, she 述べるs much of the behaviour of her fellow man during her 23 years as an MP as downright 'disgusting'.

Ann entered Westminster in 1987 at her third 試みる／企てる as MP for Maidstone, later to become Maidstone and the Weald. She was approaching her 40th birthday and no longer had the tiny waist of her 青年.

Her 早期に ambition was to be Tory party leader and finally （衆議院の）議長, neither of which happened, of course. Instead, she was ridiculed やめる cruelly, lampooned as Britain's 'scariest maiden aunt', with a 発言する／表明する like a dentist's 演習 and 見解（をとる）s to make Genghis 旅宿泊所 blush.

She was then stitched up at the party 会議／協議会 a １０年間 ago when, a day after 発表するing a 無-寛容 政策 to cannabis as home 事件／事情／状勢s spokeswoman, her いわゆる mates in the 影をつくる／尾行する 閣僚 認める to smoking the 半端物 spliff themselves.

Political ambition: Ann in 1994 as Tory MP for Maidstone

Ann 退却／保養地d from the 前線 （法廷の）裁判s the に引き続いて year and, three years ago, decided to retire from politics 完全に, giving up her seat at the last 選挙.

'It had been coming for a long time. I'd started to prefer the countryside to the metropolis,' says Ann, who now lives alone on Dartmoor.

'I'd also started to prefer Countdown to Question Time. If you'd asked me even five years ago: "Ann, what 職業 would you most like in TV?" I'd have said, "Jeremy Paxman's or John Humphrys'." Now I'd say I'd love to 現在の Songs Of 賞賛する. So, when my 選挙区／有権者 asked me in 2007: "Are you going to stand again?" I thought: "Three years of this 議会, five years in the next. Eight years..." So I said no.

'I got it 絶対 権利, and the 推論する／理由 I know this is that I've been 支援する twice to Westminster to see people, and it's as if I was never there.' Gosh, again she's unaware of how sad this sounds.

'I've spoken to other 同僚s who've gone 支援する and felt やめる a 厳しい 強く引っ張る. I need never have been there. I spent 23 years there, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I have no 悔いるs about 存在 there, even when times were やめる disgusting. But I have done it. This is what a lot of people can't seem to get into their 長，率いるs. I've retired.

'Maybe people are laughing at me on 厳密に, or maybe they're laughing with me, but at least they're enjoying the show. When people say we shouldn't be there and talk about 回復するing the dance-off, I say, "Hang on, I 港／避難所't been in the 底（に届く） two yet. I would never have been dancing off."' And Ann looks inordinately proud as she tells me this.

厳密に is, after all, as much a popul arity contest as it is a dance 競争, and she is 証明するing to be as popular a contestant as she was a 政治家，政治屋.

'I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to put my 指名する 今後 for Tory leader in 2001 when William Hague stepped 負かす／撃墜する,' she says. 'I had 抱擁する support in the country but I didn't have it in 議会, and the way the party 支配するs work it's the MPs who 減ずる the 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of 候補者s to two. If the country had been doing the 削減, nothing would have stopped me.'

This is a 深く，強烈に telling aside, of course, and 明確に Ann enjoys public 是認. 'I like the 賞賛 I get on 厳密に. It's nice because you know you please people. How would you like to give a 業績／成果 and nobody 反応するd? I love people to be happy; then you know you've done a good 職業. This is what 存在 retired is about - having fun. I've done enough of the other thing.'

And then she's up on those tiny little feet once more, and off to galumph across the 床に打ち倒す in the 武器 of the delightful Anton.

厳密に Come Dancing is on BBC1, Saturday, 6.30pm.