Born in
St Albans, Widdicombe attended
St Albans School and then
Queens' College, Cambridge. After one year at university, he was called up to serve in the
British Army for the remainder of
World War II. At the
1945 UK general election, Widdicombe stood for the
Labour Party in
Hythe, aged just 21, taking 35.2% of the vote and second place. In 1946, he was demobbed and returned to Queens', where in 1947 he was a founder of the
Varsity student newspaper, becoming its editor the following year. He also served as president of the
Cambridge University Labour Club. Widdicombe stood in
Totnes, Devon, at the
1950 UK general election, taking 29.6% of the vote. One of his supporters during the campaign was
Lee Kuan Yew, a friend of his from Cambridge, who would go on to become the first prime minister of Singapore, and a founding father of modern Singapore; for Lee, it was his first political campaign. After graduation, Widdicombe qualified as a barrister with the
Inner Temple, specialising in government administration. He became a
Queen's Counsel, a recorder and a deputy High Court judge. He represented the
London Borough of Bromley in the
Fares Fair case, and chaired the enquiry that followed the
homes for votes scandal. ==References==