ANN Widdecombe dropped a bombshell when she visited Malvern this week.

The outspoken Conservative MP announced her retirement at the end of the next Parliamentary term, during a speech at the Forum theatre.

Ms Widdecome, who said she planned to moved to Dartmoor and buy some dogs to walk, was guest speaker at the County Federation of Women's Institutes' annual conference on Tuesday.

After her talk, a packed audience plied her with questions on a variety of subjects.

Asked to comment on Labour's loans-for-peerages scandal, she said: "State funding of political parties would eliminate this sort of thing, but it would bring along problems of its own. I don't think there are any very easy solutions."

Ms Widdecombe later signed copies of her fourth novel An Act of Peace.

"I enjoyed my visit tremendously," she said. "It was a very lovely audience and they asked a lot of interesting questions."

The MP for Maidstone and the Weald served as a minister of state in the Home Office under the Major government. Among her current interests is campaigning for Gurkha soldiers to have the same rights as British members of the armed forces.

County WI chairman Chris Marriott said: "Ann was absolutely superb. She talked about her life, how she started as an MP, her work and her books.

"We had 908 applications for tickets and the hall only seats 800, so we had to disappoint more than 100 members."