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GB News star Andrew Pierce writes a touching tribute to his late friend and explains why yesterday's funeral gave him some small comfort

When she entered Parliament for the first time in 1987, the saintly Ann Widdecombe, a close friend of mine for 30 years, uttered a private prayer: "Please, Lord, never let me lose my sense of outrage."

She never did. She never lost her genuine anger at injustice, incompetence, cruelty and the regular abuse of authority. The source of her lifelong sense of outrage was her Christian faith.

Widders, as she was affectionately known, was not a politician manufactured by focus groups.

She never asked what opinion would be safest before deciding what she believed.

She would not hesitate to stand alone when conscience required it.

When she supported Labour's ban on fox hunting in the first Blair Government, there was outrage on the Tory benches. But she stuck to her guns.

Her fierce independence brought both the triumphs and the disappointments of her career.

While she reached high office — she was Minister of State, one rung below the Cabinet, in John Major's Government, and Shadow Home Secretary — I don't think she ever scaled the heights she deserved, because of her uncompromising stance on issues from civil partnerships, which she opposed, to hostility to abortion. Widders would rather have lost her place on the greasy pole of ministerial ambition than lose her moral compass.

At her funeral this week at Buckfast Abbey in Devon, Sir Christian Sweeting paid tribute to his friend of 30 years.

"Her outrage was not theatrical," he said. "It came from a genuine anger at injustice, incompetence, cruelty and the casual misuse of authority.

"The source of much of that courage — and of her lifelong sense of outrage — was her Christian faith.

"It was not something Ann merely professed, still less something she confined to Sundays. It was the foundation upon which she ordered her life."

Widdecombe converted to Catholicism in 1993 in despair at the Church of England's decision to ordain women priests.

Predictably, there was outrage from feminists and many women Labour MPs.

She never blinked in the face of their criticism. She was a rare beast in parliament who regularly demonstrated that religious faith need not be hidden or apologised for in public life.

Sweeting said: "She defended the sanctity of human life, opposed assisted suicide and spoke according to her conscience even when doing so brought criticism or personal hostility.

"She did not alter her beliefs to accommodate the fashions of the age. She accepted the cost of fidelity with characteristic fortitude and, usually, with good humour."

Of course, there was the fun side of Ann Widdecombe. There was Strictly Come Dancing.

I was in the studio audience for one of her outings. I compared her to a rampaging rhinoceros. She laughed and laughed.

There were pantomimes, documentaries, game shows, public speaking and, in 2018, Celebrity Big Brother, where she came second.

As Sweeting said in his eulogy this week, after 23 years in parliament, "the Big Brother House was like sheltered accommodation."

But the real Ann was the brave woman I know who would not compromise on her beliefs, which was why I never invited her to my civil partnership party.

In our friendship of over 30 years, she dreamed of the day she would own a house on Dartmoor. She called it Widdecombe's Rest.

It was her friend Christian Sweeting who found it. It was, she said, her sanctuary — a sanctuary shattered by the shocking nature of her death.

Buckfast Abbey was also hugely important to her. She regarded it as her safe haven.

To those people who love Widders, it is a small comfort that she was laid to rest in a place where she felt close to God and completely safe. RIP Widders.