Word reaches us that former Tory evangelist Ann Widdecombe has turned on her once dancing heels and quickstepped away from a talk at the Oxford Literary Festival.
She had been due to appear on stage with John Cornwell, whose new book on the history of confession, The Dark Box, has been described as “riddled with sex”. Widdecombe, a convert to Catholicism, has written Sackcloth and Ashes, on penance and the Church. Cornwell’s book is a serious tome but he knows how to tell a good story, especially about the more lascivious aspects of religion.
What could possibly have turned the prudish Widdecombe against such a discussion? “One is talking upwards, the other is talking downwards,” says my source in the middle of them. “It would have led to a rather acrimonious shouting match.”
