FORMER Conservative Minister, author and Strictly Come Dancing star Ann Widdecombe enthralled an audience at Bradford Village Hall last Wednesday with her talk entitled ‘Life After Westminster’.

She amused audiences with her anecdotes about her time in politics, including how she bellowed down a loudspeaker: “Brian, come back! I have not got any Christian principles!” during a General Election campaign in Margate, entitled ‘Christian Principles’, after her agent left her without the literature she needed.

Surprisingly, she confessed, her majority actually went up that year.

After the entertaining first half giving an insight into the behind the scenes of Strictly Come Dancing, Ann came back on, having spent the interval book-signing and posing for photographs with audience members.

The second half saw her answering the audience’s questions, she said: “This half is completely up to you.”

The session lasted for another hour and audiences learned she would liked to have been Prime Minister and feels Boris Johnson is a very able and astute politician who would make a first class ‘domestic’ Prime Minister.

Ann had been asked to Bradford by Torridge Councillor Philip Hackett, who, in thanking her, said: “It was a case of serendipity really, one of the Bradford and Cookbury Parish Councillors had challenged me to bring a ‘celebrity politician’ to Bradford at the same time the hall were looking for funding for a hearing loop, and Holsworthy Conservative Association needed a fundraising event. In this case I have managed to kill three birds with one stone!”

As a result of the evening £1,000 has been raised, which will be split equally between the Village Hall and the Conservative Association.