01.08.2001

Thatcher?s favourite

Former Conservative Party deputy chairman and friend of the rich and well connected, Jeffrey Archer, has become a pariah. The media fell upon him in an orgy of self-satisfied glee. For the last 15 years libel actions or the threat of them prevented the truth from being told. The Daily Star had to pay out a cool ?500,000 in 1987. There was no establishment conspiracy to protect him, nor seduction by Krug champagne and shepherds pie. Libel laws cowed the sensationalist and investigative media alike. What did for Archer was a slighted friend - a co-conspirator who became a Judas.

The successful prosecution of Archer and exposure of his world of lies has brought his whole family crashing down too. Not only has Jeffrey Archer been sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice, but his wife, Mary Archer, has also been under police investigation for perjuring herself at his trial. Now his son, James Archer, has been barred for life from the City?s financial institutions for illicit, if not illegal, dealings and then, presumably taking a leaf out of his old man?s book, lying about it.

Mind you, professor Mary Archer has reportedly asked for ?250,000 for an exclusive interview laying bare her life with Jeffrey over the last 35 years, so she is no slouch in the moneymaking stakes. In fact, previously no action was taken against her when, during her time as a director of Anglia Television, her husband bought shares in the company through an intermediary during a secret takeover bid and later sold them for a quick ?77,219 profit.

However, Archer?s disgrace represents more than the fall of one man and his family. It is the symbolic denouement of the ?there is no such thing as society? version of Thatcherism. Significantly, neither Margaret Thatcher nor John Major have condemned him. Thatcher has uncharacteristically remained silent. Major muttered that he wants everyone to ?remember the many kind and generous things Jeffrey has done?.

Archer truly represents the Thatcherite cult of the self-made individual. Although he failed as a businessman and as an MP, the 1980s and 1990s provided Archer with the rise and fall and rise again opportunity to feed his bottomless ego. A brilliantly prolific pulp novelist, Archer was never interested in wealth for its own sake. He craved establishment and popular esteem.

Archer?s success in achieving this - after a painstaking rehabilitation and endlessly glad-handing Conservative constituency activists - is testified to by his ability to secure the official nomination as London mayoral candidate. William Hague enthusiastically endorsed him (only withdrawing his backing when the present contempt hearings started to unfold).

Archer?s present low looks set to go even lower. Claims of ?57 million raised by Simple Truth, his Kurdish fund, appear to have been much exaggerated, thanks mainly to British Red Cross overestimates. What is not in dispute though is that at most only ?250,000 of the millions raised ever reached the Kurds themselves. Former Tory Party vice-chair Emma Nicholson, now a Liberal Democrat MEP and closely involved in a Kurdish charity, says she ?tried to raise the matter with Conservative ministers years ago?, but they simply wanted to brush the matter under a carpet. After all, Archer was a prot?g? of Thatcher and Major? (The Independent July 21). Nicholson wants an investigation by the fraud squad. Already the department for international development has launched its own re-examination of Simple Truth.

An inland revenue inquiry also seems likely, since one of Archer?s cronies, Michael Stacpoole, has come clean. Stacpoole admits smuggling wads of cash for him from Jersey, where he is alleged to have stashed ?1 million in one of the island?s tax haven bank accounts.

Central to Archer?s criminal conviction, of course, was the successful libel action he launched against the Daily Star. Its editor at the time died prematurely because of the libel action, according to his widow. Now, following Archer?s conviction, the Star?s present editor, Peter Hill, has issued a writ for ?2.3 million - the ?500,000 plus costs with interest. Besides that businessman Simon Hume-Kendall, formerly a friend of Archer?s mistress, Andrina Colquhoun, is considering taking libel action against him. He alleges that Archer portrays him as a swindler in one of his novels.

Jeffrey Archer protected himself over the years through a variety of methods: cultivating a cosy relationship with newspaper editors, flattering reporters, but above all using his reputation as someone who would sue at the drop of a hat and was prepared to spend as much as it took to ensure successful litigation. His action against the Daily Star was a clincher in this regard and must have made Archer imagine himself unassailable. Indeed, in 1987 Paul Foot sent Richard Stott, who was then editor of the Daily Mirror, conclusive proof that Archer shoplifted three suits from a Canadian store; Stott responded, ?He?s just won ?500,000 from the Star. We simply cannot risk publishing? (The Guardian July 23).

The whole raft of libel laws need thorough democratisation. There must be free speech and a court system that no longer works according to the principle of money. There must be legal aid even for the relatively well-off. The principle we primarily fight for is not financial compensation but the right to reply, something that would be given real bite by instituting measures to replace proprietorial control with journalists? and printers? control over mass circulation newspapers and other such publications.

Jim Gilbert