British police arrest man, accuse him of killing Ann Widdecombe, a Brexit-backing politician

The news out of southwest England Thursday stopped us cold. Ann Widdecombe wasn't just a former MP. She was one of the last of a breed in British politics, someone who said what she meant and didn't spend her career triangulating for approval from people who despised her anyway. Whoever did this took a life, full stop, and the fact that police already have a suspect in custody is the one piece of this story that offers any comfort at all.

We didn't agree with Widdecombe on everything. Nobody who watched her for thirty years did. But she earned respect the old-fashioned way, by being consistent even when it cost her something. She backed Brexit when backing Brexit meant getting sneered at by half of London's chattering class, and she never once pretended it was complicated to explain why. That kind of plain-spoken conviction is rarer now than it was when she was in Parliament, and it's rarer still among the people who replaced her generation.

There will be plenty of speculation in the coming days about motive, about who this suspect is, about whether politics had anything to do with it. We'd urge some patience there. Public figures who speak bluntly always attract obsessives and grudges that have nothing to do with policy, and jumping to conclusions before police have laid out the facts does nobody any favors, least of all the truth.

What we'll say plainly is this: a woman who spent decades in public life, who took hits for her positions and never flinched, deserved to die of old age surrounded by people who loved her, not to be found dead in her own home. That much shouldn't require a political argument to understand.