When a 78-year-old woman who spent decades poking the progressive consensus in the eye ends up beaten to death in her own sitting room, you might expect a certain amount of hand-wringing about the state of political discourse. Instead the usual voices have stayed oddly quiet. Perhaps because the victim was Ann Widdecombe.
Her body was discovered at her home in Haytor Vale on the edge of Dartmoor at about 11:40am on 9 July. She had sustained serious injuries from what police now describe as a targeted attack carried out the previous afternoon. The timing is grimly neat: that same morning she had appeared on TalkTV, doing what she always did, saying the sort of things that make certain people seethe.
Devon and Cornwall Police initially handled the case before counter-terrorism officers took over. A 28-year-old man from Rotherham drove roughly 270 miles south, did what he came to do, and drove back. Joshua Kerry was arrested on suspicion of murder on 11 July, then re-arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. He remains in custody. Police say he acted alone.
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor of counter-terrorism policing put it plainly: officers are working to understand the planning, preparation and motivation behind the attack. Investigators are looking at possible left-wing, anarchist or single-issue terrorism angles, including hostility to Widdecombe's longstanding views or to Reform UK itself. The shift from "possible botched burglary" to full-blown terrorism probe tells its own story.
Kerry, a former lift company employee described as quiet and shy, lived alone in a council house. The sort of unremarkable loner who, in different circumstances, might have passed entirely beneath notice. Searches at his home in Rotherham apparently changed that assessment rather quickly.
This is not some random act of thuggery. A man drives half the length of the country to attack a pensioner whose main offence, in the eyes of her critics, was to defend traditional values, national sovereignty and the right to speak plainly. That the investigation has landed with counter-terrorism police should concentrate minds. When ideological hostility to a public figure's opinions leads to murder, democratic debate has acquired a rather more permanent hazard.
