I don’t know if you remember that old saw: ‘Always speak ill of the dead.’ I don’t recall being brought up with it myself, but a number of our fellow countrymen apparently were. After the brutal killing of Ann Widdecombe last week we saw some fine examples of people following this rule.
Peter Tatchell – a prominent member of the ‘be kind’ brigade – took to social media to describe the death of Widdecombe in celebratory tones. He listed her crimes, such as her belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, and then ended his tweet by saying: ‘BIGOT!’ As though final judgment had been passed down from on high.
It seems possible to say anything you like about somebody, living or dead, if they happen to be right-wing
Adam Boulton of Sky News made a similarly crass intervention, summing up the former MP and MEP’s career mainly by reference to her private life. It was an odd performance from Boulton, who seemed interested not in any of Widdecombe’s very significant political accomplishments, but by the fact that she was an ‘old maid’, a ‘spinster’ and a ‘virgin’. Since Boulton doesn’t mind speaking so disrespectfully of the dead, perhaps I might respond in kind about the living, by pointing out that he would probably have made a number of women happier if he had remained a virgin himself.
