When Louis Met... Ann Widdecombe

Louis Theroux:
[admiring Ann's cat] You have an internet site where you've written a poem about your cats?

Ann Widdecombe:
I have indeed - 'Goodness gracious, what is that? It's Mr. Pugwash my black cat. Goodness gracious, are there others? Yes indeed, my cat Carruthers'.

Louis Theroux:
[At Ann's house in London] Have we got time for a very quick tour, then?

Ann Widdecombe:
Um... well it depends what you want to tour. I don't let anybody go upstairs.

Louis Theroux:
Why not?

Ann Widdecombe:
Because I never do. I always say downstairs is where I invite people, it's where I invite all my friends, upstairs is where my mother and I live.

Louis Theroux:
[voiceover] Ann was at the hairdresser's. Having said she would never get a makeover, Ann was about to go for a completely new look.

Louis Theroux:
Who calls the shots, basiscally?

Nicky:
Ann does.

Ann Widdecombe:
The customer says what the customer wants.

Louis Theroux:
Because you have come into some criticism for your hair?

Ann Widdecombe:
Have I now?

Louis Theroux:
Yes.

Ann Widdecombe:
There you go Nicky, he's being rude about your...

Louis Theroux:
Nicky, is that being rude? Am I being rude to you by saying that?

Ann Widdecombe:
Yes - Say yes, Nicky, say yes.

Nicky:
Yes, you are, I suppose.

Ann Widdecombe:
Well done. Well done.

Louis Theroux:
[Louis is slightly hungover from a friend's wedding the night before] Ooo, I think my headache's starting to lift. What a relief.

Ann Widdecombe:
What sort of a wedding was it?

Louis Theroux:
Well it was a normal wedding, I don't know. I thought I did quite well only having the one bottle of wine.

Ann Widdecombe:
Did you have the awful tradition of a disco afterwards?

Louis Theroux:
Yeah. Oh, it was nice.

Ann Widdecombe:
I hate that.

Louis Theroux:
Why?

Ann Widdecombe:
Uh... I prefer the wedding where you have the service, you have the reception and then the couple go away.

Louis Theroux:
You've explained how you like it, you didn't explain why you don't like the disco?

Ann Widdecombe:
I don't think I have to have why's behind everything and deep reasons as though it's a piece of philosophy. It happens to be a like or a dislike. I don't think I have to explain why I like potato.

Louis Theroux:
So you don't know why?

Ann Widdecombe:
Or why I don't like liver. Stop turning everything into a confrontation, Louis Theroux.

Louis Theroux:
Maybe if it were different music? Slightly more formal music, would that help? Sort of waltzes?

Ann Widdecombe:
No. No, that wouldn't help at all, that's not the issue.

Ann Widdecombe:
This program is doomed to failure you know, because the sort of conversation I find interesting, you don't, and the sort of conversation you find interesting, I don't. So it's doomed to fail, it's absolutely doomed to fail!

Louis Theroux:
You're unusual in many respects... you're an outspoken, prominent politician, but you're also a single woman of a certain age who's expressed, um, you've said that you don't think you'll ever get married, you've said you're a virgin...

Ann Widdecombe:
Uh, no, I haven't, people ask impertinent questions and they make their own deducations but I always tell people to mind their own business.

Louis Theroux:
Do you? I read a quote last night that said "If anyone says I'm not a virgin, I'll sue them."

Ann Widdecombe:
As I've said, and I'm not going to go any further than I've just gone, I don't regard it as anybody else's business.

Louis Theroux:
Hmm. Well, I'll winkle away at that one.

Ann Widdecombe:
Well, I was actually told you would not, when we had the discussion.

Louis Theroux:
By Kate?

Ann Widdecombe:
Yes.

Louis Theroux:
Don't believe anything she says.

Ann Widdecombe:
Well, I said that I wouldn't agree to the documentary it was going to be along those sorts of lines because...

Louis Theroux:
OK - no, no I'll keep it...

Ann Widdecombe:
Bluntly, I regard it as an impertinence.

[At Ann Widdecombe's office in the Houses of Parliament, Louis meets her secretary Gloria, who used manage rock stars like Debbie Harry, the Ramones and the B-52s]

Louis Theroux:
Of the rock stars that you've handled, is there any of those that Ann most closely resembles?

[Ann laughs out loud]

Ann Widdecombe:
I'm going to say at this point I'm going to take them into my room, come on folks.

Louis Theroux:
You're not as tall as I was expecting.

Ann Widdecombe:
Five foot one and a half, and don't forget the half.

Ann Widdecombe:
[speaking at a girls school in Kent] No matter how successful you are in life, none of it's worth having if it's only done for yourself.

Louis Theroux:
[looking at a photograph on the wall of Ann's constituency home] Now here's the younger Ann Widdecombe meeting Mrs Thatcher, is it? What was the occasion?

Ann Widdecombe:
It was Women and Families for Defence, which was a group set up to counter the Greenham Common women.

Louis Theroux:
You were pro-nuclear weapons.

Ann Widdecombe:
Very much so.

Louis Theroux:
[Ann is showing Louis the garden of her constituency home] Can I prevail on you to let us see the bathroom or the bedroom?

Ann Widdecombe:
No.

Louis Theroux:
That - I mean, can I press that point?

Ann Widdecombe:
Uh, you can press it but the answer will be the same.

Louis Theroux:
Will it?

Ann Widdecombe:
Yeah. No, I don't, I don't open up private areas of the house to the cameras.

Louis Theroux:
OK, I'm pressing it.

Ann Widdecombe:
No.

Louis Theroux:
I'm continuing to press.

Ann Widdecombe:
You can press away but you won't get any different answer.

Louis Theroux:
I would really like to see your bedroom.

Ann Widdecombe:
No, I won't let anybody in my bedroom, certainly not a television camera. Come on, stop arguing, you're not going to get me to change my mind.

Louis Theroux:
The bathroom?

Ann Widdecombe:
No! [scoffs] What do you want to photograph the bathroom for, honestly? [they head round the side of Ann's house] Right, OK, now as we go past here, I know it's a bungalow, but you will keep your cameras away.

Louis Theroux:
From the bungalow?

Ann Widdecombe:
No. From any rooms which I've specified that you can't go in.

Louis Theroux:
Oh, OK. [they walk along the side of the house, Ann stands in front of a window and waves the camera crew past] I sense it's a point of principle with you, that there's nothing in particular that you're worried that we should see...

Ann Widdecombe:
No, nothing at all.

Louis Theroux:
I glanced to the left.

Ann Widdecombe:
That I don't mind because anybody walking past could do that.

Louis Theroux:
It looked quite normal.

Ann Widdecombe:
It's perfectly normal, I just don't want you filming in there, that's all.

Louis Theroux:
[In Ann's garden] Nice to be on a little hillside.

Ann Widdecombe:
Yes... there is the famous Sutton Valence view which you can't get from here. But I find this quite pleasant.

Louis Theroux:
And we're in Sutton Valence, aren't we?

Ann Widdecombe:
Oh yes, we are. We're right in the middle of it.

Louis Theroux:
Is it known for being a particularly picturesque little village?

Ann Widdecombe:
Well, I think it's pictures-queue

Louis Theroux:
You said what?

Ann Widdecombe:
I said I think it's pictures-queue. Picturesque. [Louis looks at her, smirking] Anti-queue, pictures-queue. [Louis isn't acknowledging her little joke] Oh, dear me... [she sighs and laughs]

Louis Theroux:
You called me wet! That is a bit wet, isn't it?

Ann Widdecombe:
If you say so. I don't mind. Don't mind being a bit wet.

Louis Theroux:
[after Ann talks to a man at the Kent County Agricultural Show] He had a local accent I think, did he?

Ann Widdecombe:
He's Maidstone, yes.

Louis Theroux:
Perhaps it was just a speech impediment.

Ann Widdecombe:
Don't you be so rude about the Kentish accent!

Louis Theroux:
Did you think about getting, sort of, a makeover?

Ann Widdecombe:
No, I did not, Louis.

Louis Theroux:
You seem to regard that as a ludicrous question.

Ann Widdecombe:
I do.

Louis Theroux:
Why?

Ann Widdecombe:
Why should I?

Louis Theroux:
Well, because... politics is about image, isn't it? About communication?

Ann Widdecombe:
No. No, it's about substance, it's about what you believe and it's about what you think you should be done. That's what it's all about. That's exactly what it's all about.

Louis Theroux:
But it's not in the modern world though, is it?

Ann Widdecombe:
Well, tough.

Gloria - Ann's Secretary:
Ann writes letters the way other people breathe.

Louis Theroux:
[discussing the party leadership election] I honestly felt like I sensed her kind of being marginalised in the last couple of days and then now today I feel that she's back in the middle, she's back in the throng.

Gloria - Ann's Secretary:
It's rock and roll, it's battlefield conditions, same thing.

Louis Theroux:
And what about Portillo? I quite like him.

Gloria - Ann's Secretary:
Well, he's very charismatic.

Louis Theroux:
He's got big blubbery lips.

Gloria - Ann's Secretary:
Like Mike Jagger. [she laughs]

Louis Theroux:
Do you know what I mean?

Gloria - Ann's Secretary:
Yeah, I do know, he's very charismatic.

Louis Theroux:
He's sort of sexy, I think. Don't you think?

Gloria - Ann's Secretary:
Don't even go there. Don't even go there!

[Louis is visiting Ann and her mother Rita on a Norwegian cruise ship, they're in the living room area of their cabin]

Rita Widdecombe:
[heading towards the bedroom] Shall I show you our cabin?

Louis Theroux:
Is that all right with Ann?

Rita Widdecombe:
Doesn't matter about Ann.

[Louis laughs]

Ann Widdecombe:
Yeah - No, no, no, no. No, I don't let them ever see the bedroom. They're forbidden in both houses and here.

[Rita looks confused]

Louis Theroux:
Surely the mother has the right to overrule the daughter?

Ann Widdecombe:
No, you're far too inquisitive, Louis Theroux. Now, you stay there while I find the spectacles.

Rita Widdecombe:
Am I allowed to go in the cabin?

[Louis and Ann's friend laugh]

[Ann has just had a run-in with an angry protester while giving a speech]

Woman:
I thought you were absolutely heroic in the way you dealt with the egg-throwing...

Ann Widdecombe:
Oh, it was nothing.

Woman:
You've encountered this sort of problem before?

Ann Widdecombe:
I'm experienced in most missiles of protest.

Louis Theroux:
You're so busy and hard working I wonder if one of the reasons you never started a family is because you had so many ambitions.

Ann Widdecombe:
Well, I've always said Mr Right didn't come along and it was never a priority to go out looking for him, so it just didn't happen.

Louis Theroux:
Do you think it's too late?

Ann Widdecombe:
[sighing and laughing] Oh, Louis... Honestly! You are hilarious.

Louis Theroux:
What? What's happened?

Ann Widdecombe:
What's too late?

Louis Theroux:
To meet Mr Right?

Ann Widdecombe:
I'm 53!

Louis Theroux:
People get married at 80.

Ann Widdecombe:
But I'm not going to.

Louis Theroux:
People are generally, I mean, people are curious, aren't they?

Ann Widdecombe:
Are they? I don't know.

[Louis is saying goodbye to Ann and leaving her house in a taxi]

Louis Theroux:
Do you know who that is? Ann Widdecombe.

Taxi Driver:
Who's Ann Widdecombe?