Ann Widdecombe’s death was shock enough – even at 78, I had thought she might last longer, tough bird that she was – but her murder is one of those events that rocks the nation. I knew her a little, on the back of a lunch here, an encounter there (one with the other murdered Catholic parliamentarian, David Amess), but when I reviewed her memoir in the Standard, she wrote to thank me for my observations. The book has long disappeared but one line in it stays in my memory: she said that as a single woman, she was always happy when she returned home at the end of the day and closed her door, and could do what she liked. She felt safe. She was not, in fact, necessarily single by choice – she had a boyfriend at Oxford, Colin, whom she had hoped to marry. But the issue is: if an elderly, highly respected single woman is not safe in her own home, then the country is gone to hell.