People were right to ‘speculate’ about the death of Ann Widdecombe

‘Please don’t speculate.’ If I hear that chilling instruction one more time, I’m going to flip. It’s been the deathly, censorious chorus of the police, politicians and every media prick since Ann Widdecombe’s body was discovered at her home in Dartmoor last week. Don’t speculate. Don’t be a conspiracy theorist. Don’t exploit this tragedy. Don’t say it was political. Don’t call it terrorism. On and on they droned. And yet now it seems the ‘speculators’, those defamed as fantastists, may have been on to something.

Today it has been announced that counter-terrorism cops are taking over the investigation of Ms Widdecombe’s death. The body of the veteran Tory / Reform politician was found on Thursday. Shock tore through the nation when it was later announced she had sustained serious injuries and there would be a murder investigation. But cops were quick — weirdly so — to dampen ‘speculation’ that it might have been a political killing or a terroristic act. There is ‘nothing to suggest’ it was politically motivated, they said.

To many of us, it just didn’t stack up. How could they be so sure so soon? What’s more, the first suspect they arrested – a ‘26-year-old white man’, they told us, with the emphasis on ‘white’ – was swiftly released without charge. Without a suspect, how could they decipher a motive? Then came the news of the arrest of a second suspect, and that’s when folk really started scratching their heads. He was arrested in Rotherham, more than 250 miles from Widdecombe’s home. We were expected to believe that a random from Rotherham allegedly drove across England to the exact address of a famed politician and that there was nothing to see here? Nothing to ruminate on? Nothing unnerving?

Then came the Sun’s publication of CCTV footage seeming to show the suspect getting into his car in Rotherham on the morning of Widdecombe’s death, apparently with a large wooden stick. Naturally, the Sun, too, was accused of dangerous ‘speculation’, but in truth its intrepid sourcing of the CCTV footage contributed enormously to the public’s bristling, democratic concern over this strange death in Dartmoor. Even the BBC is now saying that the Sun’s reporting was swiftly followed by today’s jolting announcement: that Widdecombe’s death is now being investigated by counter-terror cops.

It was a moral outrage to shame the masses for ‘speculating’. People have serious, burning and entirely legitimate questions about this horrific incident. They knew it didn’t feel right that a possible political motivation was so swiftly discarded. They knew it didn’t add up that a man would allegedly trek from Yorkshire to Devon and allegedly knock on the door of a Tory turned national treasure without some kind of motivation. It’s possible the demonised speculators will be vindicated following today’s announcement that ‘new information and evidence’ has been discovered, and that counter-terrorism will take over.

It was officialdom’s supercilious tone that was most grating. And the media class’s, too – these prigs looked down on everyone asking questions as X-brained conspiracy nuts driven loopy by populism. They dolled up their opposition to ‘speculation’ as an effort to ringfence the legal sanctity of a future trial from the grubby BS of the little people. In truth, there has been a clear censorious impulse to their reprimanding of social-media oiks: pipe down, plebs, and leave it to us of a more refined, educated bent.

Maybe the chin-scratching public were right and the haughty elites were wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Let’s see. Of course, justice must not be prejudiced. And Widdecombe and her loved ones really do deserve justice for the horror that appears to have been inflicted on her. But respecting justice does not preclude querying police narratives, especially when they are asking us to believe that an alleged Rotherham-to-Dartmoor journey, with an alleged weapon, where a simultaneously loved and hated politician was the alleged target, is a random thing with no motivation. We must be free to query that. It was good that people did.

It’s the double standards of the speculation shushers that really stands out. When a ‘progressive’ individual is attacked, it is instantly narrativised as the horrible consequence of right-wing ‘culture’ and angry tabloid criticism. Yet when a figure on the right is attacked, it’s all ‘Don’t speculate’, don’t point a finger, don’t weave a self-serving narrative. Shorter version: we can ‘exploit tragedy’, but you can’t. It’s preposterous, and sinister. We need justice for Ann, and we also need the right to put pressure on officialdom if we think they are selling both us and her short with their investigations.

Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His new book, Vibe Shift: The Revolt Against Wokeness, Greenism and Technocracy, is out now. Find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.