Before and after: the picture of Ed Matts and Ann Widdecombe
Remember the scandal of the Tory candidate and the doctored photo of Ann Widdecombe? During the general election campaign, Ed Matts of Dorset South altered a picture of himself standing next to Ann Widdecombe. In the original picture Ms Widdecombe is holding a placard reading "Let them stay" in support of a family of asylum seekers. In Mr Matts's version of the photo, the placard reads "Controlled immigration - not chaos and inhumanity", a message he thought more in keeping with the Tories' campaign.
The "them" in question were a Malawian asylum seeker, Verah Kachepa, and her four children. Mrs Kachepa was abandoned in Britain by her husband, who beat her up and told her never to return to Malawi. (Polly Toynbee wrote movingly about their plight earlier this year.) The family are due to be deported in a week's time, and Ms Widdecombe joins George Galloway and others in a last-ditch protest in Westminster today. Jim Knight, Dorset South's Labour MP, continues to lobby the Home Office to let the Kachepas stay; it will be interesting to note whether Mr Matts turns up, too, and whether he will be brandishing a new placard.
