ANDREW PIERCE: At the age of 76, is it time for Ann Widdecombe to grace the House of Lords?

By ANDREW PIERCE FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 01:10 BST, 12 August 2024 | UPDATED: 01:30 BST, 12 August 2024

Admirers of Ann Widdecombe, Reform UK’s redoubtable immigration spokesman, have been baffled as to why she has been passed over for a peerage.

When she quit as an MP in 2010, many of her lesser colleagues were draped in ermine.

Most assumed Widders was overlooked by David Cameron when he was PM because she was that rare political beast – an independent, traditional Tory voice.

But is that about to change for Widders, who at 76 is a spring chicken compared to Labour’s newest peer, Margaret Beckett, now 81?

At the election, Reform polled 4.1 million votes, compared to the Lib Dems’ 3.5 million. Yet the Lib Dems have 79 peers, Reform none. Even the Greens have two peers and they polled only 650,000 votes.

So is Reform leader Nigel Farage going to elevate the saintly Widders to the Lords? He certainly should.

Girls' gang vs boys' brigade in No 10

Last time Labour was in office the fault line was between followers of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This time it is between former civil servant Sue Gray, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, and Morgan McSweeney, No 10’s Head of Political Strategy.

The battle has been dubbed Gray’s girls’ gang versus McSweeney’s boys’ brigade. One Labour veteran said of Gray: ‘She knows how government works and that is 90 per cent of the job, Morgan, a Labour apparatchik for years, is still learning. Gray wins. For now.’

Starmer has another pressing issue to deal with. He is trying to install a cat flap in the flat above No 11 for family pet JoJo. Putting a cat flap in a bombproof door is, I’m told, far from straightforward.

Larry, the No 10 cat, is doubtless purring with pleasure.

At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival the former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, a republican, revealed he had a warm relationship with the late Queen. 

‘I was the only first minister she gave racing tips to,’ he said. ‘They were always 100 per cent right. She was a class act.’

Liz Truss defied hecklers to make her debut in Edinburgh. Her addition to the comedy festival didn’t surprise stand-up Tiff Stevenson. 

‘I guess she knows all about doing a five week-odd run,’ she said.

A new novel by Tory researcher Christopher Howarth predicts victory for Kamala Harris in the US election. 

The Durian Pact was written by Howarth before Joe Biden quit to enable his deputy to run against Donald Trump. 

What else does he foresee in the novel, out next month? After riots, President Harris recalls troops from Japan and Korea, giving China chance to invade. Oh dear.

Tory attacks on Labour for its plan to release prisoners who’ve served only 40 per cent of their sentences sound increasingly hollow. In the 14 years they were in power they shut 17 prisons. 

One, Lancaster Castle, was closed in 2011 by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke despite having the second lowest reoffending rate nationwide. It is now home to a police museum. 

Revolution on the links

In the first biography of the lifelong revolutionary Paul Foot, who died 20 years ago, there is a conspicuous omission.

Foot, the nephew of the 1980s Labour leader Michael Foot, was a veteran of the Socialist Workers Party, but also a member of a more surprising club. 

‘This champion of the people was also a paid-up member of Hampstead Golf Club,’ says his son Tom, in a review of Paul Foot: A Life in Politics. 

‘Without doubt the most pompous place I have ever been.’