A 26-year-old man is being held on suspicion of murder following the death of former MP and government minister Ann Widdecombe.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Devon and Cornwall Police said the man, a white British national, was arrested at an address in Newton Abbot, Devon, and was in custody.<\/p>\n
The body of the 78-year-old former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokesperson was found by police with serious injuries at her home in Haytor, a rural village on Dartmoor in Devon, at about 11:40 BST on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The incident is not being treated as terrorism, after counter-terror policing was involved as part of “initial enquiries”.<\/p>\n
Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman told a news conference on Friday the force currently has “no information to believe that that is a politically motivated crime” – and it was “too early” to comment on whether or not the suspect was known to Widdecombe.<\/p>\n
He said the investigation was in the early stages and urged anyone with information to come forward. <\/p>\n
Widdecombe’s next of kin are being supported by specially trained officers. <\/p>\n
The prime minister and other political leaders said they were stunned by the development on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Sir Keir Starmer said it was “really shocking”, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she was “stunned to hear this awful news”.<\/p>\n
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he was “deeply, deeply upset by the nature of her death”.<\/p>\n
Widdecombe’s political career spanned decades. She served as MP for Maidstone in Kent for 23 years, and worked as a Home Office and employment minister in Sir John Major’s government between 1994 to 1997.<\/p>\n
After leaving Parliament she embarked on a showbiz career, appearing on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010 and Celebrity Big Brother in 2018.<\/p>\n
A staunch supporter of the UK’s departure from the EU, she became an MEP for the Brexit Party, representing South West England in the European Parliament between 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Widdecombe joined Farage’s Reform UK party, after it changed its name from the Brexit Party, and made a number of appearances as the party’s immigration and justice spokesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 26-year-old man is being held on suspicion of murder following the death of former MP and government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-685614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}