Editorial
If you took a straw poll of Oxford Students on Cornmarket tomorrow, and asked them which member of the Conservative party they would most like to see have pie smeared all over their face in a protest, the chances are that barring a freak William Hague recognition outburst, the most likely candidate would be Ann Widdecombe. Thus it is perhaps unsurprising that when she did deign to appear in Oxford on the promotion tour for her new book "The Clematis Tree" certain confectionary wielding revolutionaries took the opportunity of acquainting Widdecombe with the inside of a cream pie. While the committing of acts of violence against a person is never to be congratulated, it would appear that on recent form few politicians deserve to be pushed off their high horses in such a delightfully childish manner as Widdecombe.
It would seem that this politician does not like being away from the limelight, and while always presenting herself as a Christian and moral voice in the country, it does not take a genius to spot the flaws in Widdecombe's Christian values and her conservative politics.
An outspoken opponent of abortion for some time, Widdecombe has repeatedly contradicted her pro-life stance by being a staunch supporter of capital punishment. One cannot on the one hand preach the sanctity of life while with the other lecture on the necessity of institutionalised murder as a means of social control. Widdecombe is the kind of politician who if not repeatedly and seriously challenged, finds a surprising amount of support in a University like Oxford, where there are strong conservative elements, and an appreciation of outspokenness perhaps not visible in other parts of the country, What it should be the purpose of all politically minded Oxford student's to do is to challenge the hypocrisies of figures like Widdecombe and to stop them using serious moral issues as convenient devices for political point scoring.
This leads us directly into the issue of asylum seekers, which Widdecombe is again at the heart of. Contradicting the Christian values of brotherly love and duty at every turn, the Conservatives have played a callous game of "we're more heartless than you" with the Labour government, all in the pursuit of a few votes among the NIMBY community. The willingness of the shadow Home Secretary to contemplate the degradation of the basic human rights of asylum seekers by detaining them all while their claims are being processed, is an act of outrageous arrogance and morally loathsome.
While reviews of her book have been modest to say the least, it is indicative of the arrogance of Widdecombe's intellectual position that she feels her rather un-tested powers as a novelist the equal of any challenge set them. The inclusion of a sex scene in "The Clematis Tree" might lead some of the unwary to believe that Widdecombe has changed her views. It seems she has not. Ann Widdecombe is still the same kind of authority figure she was before she took up the word processor of the "serious" novelist.
While comparisons to stars of early horror cinema are cheap and hurtful, it is just as easy and infinitely more effective to confront Widdecombe over her politics, rather than her physical features. This star of the conservative front bench has revealed herself time and time again to be a bundle of intellectual contradictions, inconsistent in her moral beliefs and selective to say the least in her adherences to certain Christian constants. While the Oxford Student would never be at the heart of any pie flinging, it is not hard to see how the anarchic protesters would have felt justified in reducing Widdecombe's dignity a tad by coating her in slime, when the woman herself seems so blasé about reducing the dignity of large numbers of the most disadvantaged members of the world community in the pursuit of popularity.
Widdecombe's staunch refusal to be shaken by the incident could be interpreted as her refusing to bow to pressure placed upon her by militant minorities, or alternatively it could be viewed as yet more evidence of her seemingly boundless lack of feeling. It is not this newspaper's job to decide what Ann Widdecombe was thinking when she was thrust into the key-lime light, but rather to present as many different interpretations for you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions. Since the pie seems to have had little effect on Widdecombe one wonders what kitchen treats will be turned against her in future.
Finally we just thank God that there were no trifles involved in the incident, as doubtless the perpetrators would have to have been taken into custardy.
27th Apr 2000