GEORGE Orwell, grim prophet, now much quoted, of this dystopian age, said: "By 50 a man has the face he deserves."

I thought of that in the early hours watching Ann Widdicombe during and after her "success" in the European elections standing as a member of the Brexit Party.

Her face, contorted in a mixture of elation and triumph, vied with that thin, reedy voice as she spewed forth that odd mix of anger, hatred and ignorance instantly identifiable with her new party. There was little evidence of either warmth, or indeed the piety, allied to the fundamentalist Christian beliefs this 71-year-old has espoused all her life.

But then, by her words we already know her. She is anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, anti-abortion and someone who defended female prisoners giving birth in shackles.

READ MORE: Donald Trump backs Boris Johnson to be next PM

This is a woman apparently without empathy, without pity, without any existentialist thoughts in the night - so a perfect foil for her new boss Nigel Farage.

So egotistical, so sure of herself, she strove for a while to become the nation’s sweetheart, seeing no humiliation in being manhandled for Strictly Come Dancing as long as her knickers weren’t on view.

A few fell for this reinvention. I never did. For a brief moment I felt an embarrassed pity but then reverted to contempt, for it was obvious that under the newly blonded hair and the make-up, here was a woman set in stone carved in her early years. A woman who would stand in any limelight rather than retreat to the shadows of her cold, blinkered world. All this showed in a face folded into wrinkles of discontent, disappointment and self-righteousness.

I feel the same contempt watching and listening to Jeremy Corbyn, another hardened soul, forever mired in the Marxist/Stalinist politics we all flirted with until acknowledging the reality.

Tetchy and testy when challenged beyond his soundbites, his lips purse into a moue of petulance and one can sense he’s a stormer-out who takes himself off at the merest reproach. A man to be patted down and talked through by acolytes who mould him in clever, insidious ways.

Boris Johnson’s face, now at 54, has, in really just a few years, gone from an often engaging, mischievous front to the world, to haunted and over-indulged. But shame? Not a trace.

Michael Gove, he of the gerbil-chops and new expensive haircut, has the face of a man rather bemused to be so misunderstood. The face of the smart boy desperate to be part of the cool gang but ready to say ‘sod it’ when destiny calls. And ready, very ready, to be the nasty boy if need be.

READ MORE: Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart vows to 'union-proof' UK Government policy

In his own way he is the best actor of the lot, anticipating the hit and adjusting rapidly to it, probably due to his earlier calling as a journalist.

I imagine him standing in front of his mirror, practising both speech and movement, with, of course, Mrs Gove behind him making suggestions.

Now, if we’re using 50 as the base line, then neither Nicola Sturgeon nor Ruth Davidson have yet settled into the face they’ll own, so I must pass on them.

Richard Leonard has, at 57, but really, what would be the point?

Finally, Nigel Farage and Steve Bannon. Their faces show the ugly thoughts bubbling beneath. Farage thinks he controls his under his bluff, hearty, man-of-the-people stance. But it takes little to silence the guffaws and bluster and irritating haw-haw revealing the lizard beneath.

Bannon, with his pock-marked, reddened, coarse face, is the most obvious of all, as if his skin protests at the vileness coursing in the brain it encases.

The column has run away with me again.

I had intended to discuss a combination of the European elections, focusing on France and Scotland, but found myself moving in a different direction when pondering the performance of Ann Widdicombe and all it, and her, said about where the UK – sorry, England – finds itself.

I could have written about France’s inherent racism that once again sees all the villages around me under the sway of Le Pen’s renamed, but still far right, party.

I intended to, pointing out that her tiny margin above Macron, was actually a pretty bad showing, considering the year he’s had as he tries to reform the country.

After all, this now is my country of choice and Macron my president of choice for all his quirks. His face is still too young to show the truth.

And I have laid myself open, perhaps, to you searching my photograph for a truth.

Oh, I do it myself, in the mirror and often wonder how bad a life I led if this really is the face I deserve.

I see clearly the lines that show cynicism rather than faith; the self-indulgence of fags, red wine, junk food, too many late nights; too much hard work and conversely, happily, too much fun.

And I see disappointment, pain, but never regret. Never regret.

So, search all you like – I’ve done it first. And anyway, I have no plans to lead the country. Any country.