A 26-year-old white British male has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Ann Widdecombe. Police say not terror related.
Kemi Badenoch said:
“I’ve been stunned to hear this awful news.
To be honest, I’ve really struggled to find the words to say. Ann Widdecombe was a very fun and feisty woman who spoke her mind and she was 78 years old, she was an elderly woman.
I don’t understand how someone could do something so horrific to an elderly person. It was a nasty, horrific attack and my heart is breaking for her family.
It’s one thing when someone dies, but to know that they’ve been murdered in this horrible way is just awful.
The Conservative Party is reeling. Ann was a long-standing member of the Conservative Party, she was a Conservative minister, and then she moved to Reform.
I’m sure they’re just as stunned as we are, and I extend my condolences to Nigel Farage and everyone in Reform on behalf of the Conservative Party, because we’ve both lost a friend.”
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”