BS: Archer jailed for perjury

Subject: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:08 AM

Now, don't put me down as being horrid or vindictive...

But, this news really made my day!

Jeffrey's going to prison, tra la la la la!

Restores my faith (a bit) in British Justice :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:12 AM

It's hard to put an unnamed guest as anything!

Anyway, I hope the news is true - how long did he get?

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GUEST,JohnL
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:12 AM

Yes, but he still gets away with the novels!

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Louisa
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:22 AM

four years apparently

Louisa

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:40 AM

Hope that doesn't mean he has time to write more novels...

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:50 AM

Who is this Jeff Archer who has created this tempest-in-a-teapot? Inquiring minds west of the Atlantic want to know!

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GeorgeH
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:50 AM

Yup, pavane, that was exactly the reaction round our office. Someone suggest the Islamic punishment of amputation of the hands might be appropriate but I'm afraid I'm too squeamish . .

I note he will remain a member of the House of Lords. Which is, of course, the highest Court of Law in the land. So "perverting the course of justice" it seems is no impedement to remaining a member of our "Supreme Court".

(OK, I know ordinary members of the HofL don't take part in its "Court of Law" functions . . )

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GeorgeH
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:54 AM

Arch fornicating bastard of the Tory party and popular author of apalling novels . .

Oh, and a liar . .

He's just been convicted of Perjury and Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice . . this relates to a case where he sued a newspaper for Libel . . the newspaper was telling the truth, and Archer presented a totaly bogus version of events to the court.

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Fiolar
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:55 AM

No doubt like so many more he'll find Christ in the confines of her Majesty's lock-up. A long time resident of the Old Vicarage, Granchester, I wonder if he is echoing tonight the words of one of the previous residents, Rupert Brooke - "...would I were in Granchester, in Granchester!" Four Years! It's farcical really, seeing as how one could get life for perverting the course of justice, which Archer together with perjury was found guilty of.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 11:55 AM

Can someone please provide a little background?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:09 PM

It's made my day!

Who'd have thought that Schadenfreude could be quite such fun!!!!!
For those who want to know more, click here.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:29 PM

Thanks for the link, Gervase!

Ewwww, what a slimeball! I see why y'all are so pleased with his conviction!

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Grab
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:30 PM

Profile of the weasel in question from the BBC.

Can we throw in a charge of Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Literature?

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GUEST,alanabit
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:34 PM

Archer was a member of the most vindictive, selfish and callous government of my lifetime. I can forgive him the rotten novels, because I don't have to read them and I have not always written things of unchallengeable quality myself! He was probably as guilty as Hell. I care nothing about his sexual adventures, because they are none of my damned business. It is rare for our over privileged judiciary to punish one of their own, so Lord Jeffrey may feel a little aggrieved this evening. Having said that, I can derive no pleasure from hearing that anyone who presents no actual physical danger to myself, my kin or my friends is being locked up in a slum with a chamber pot. It may satisfy some desire for retribution, but it is unlikely to make him a better man or have any lasting effect on our system. To quote the most atavistic Home Secretary of recent years (the only hanger in fact) "Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse".

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Fiolar
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:34 PM

BBC interviewed several of his friends whose attitude is "that he is a rogue, but you have to like him." Bollocks. I think he is an obnoxious little spiv. I wonder if an ordinary member of the public had committed the same offences as Archer whether he/she would have got away with four years. Make that about 18 months to 2 years and he'll be out for "good behaviour." Remember that other "pillar of the community" Jonathan Aitken?

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:38 PM

Hope that doesn't mean he has time to write more novels...

Oh but it does. Lots and lots more time. And short stories. And plays. And an autobiography. And lots of new material to put into them.

And he'll probably be in an open prison with a computer with internet access. He could turn up here. God, he might start writing songs...

And when he comes out he'll be all over the place. We ain't seen nothin' yet.

And the thing is, I doubt very much if, in the context of the rest of his cronies in politics, he's unusually crooked. If he was a Yank I think there's a high chance he'd be in a governor's mansion. Or maybe the White House.

I'm sure that in a popularity poll in a year or so, he'll probably score higher than most other politicians. Higher than Tony Blair or George Bush anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: TamthebamfraeScotland
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:44 PM

Archer, that shit. I'm glad that he's been put away for 4 years. Mind you he'll proberly get out in two, even so that better than being found not guilty.

I really feel sorry for his fellow prisoners, what more punishment. They'll all be saying get us out of here.

As you can tell I really don't like shitty Archer very much or the party that he belongs too.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GeorgeH
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:52 PM

Sadly, McGrath, I fear you are right again . .

Sequestration of his lovely mansion in Granchester would have been far more effective . .

However I can't say I feel there's much wrong with the sentence, after all Perverting TCoJ could include obtaining a false verdict in a murder trial . .

And I reckon a spell in the squalor enjoyed by "guests of her majesty" would be good for all our politicians, since they seem to think there's nothing amiss with our prisons . . except, as McG again points out, he's unlikely to be in one of those prisons . .

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:53 PM

I don't like Archer or his party either. The fact that you or I would have been punished more severely is hardly justification for spending large sums of public money on humiliating a man who does not endanger us. Jonathon Aitken was a different class of criminal. The bottom line of his story is that the man was a "weapon sales connsultant" - I prefer term "gun runner", to some of the more unlovely Arab dictators. That really does give me the creeps.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: English Jon
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 12:54 PM

Well, it's a start. Now to get Thatch for the Belgrano.

EJ

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 01:00 PM

Now you're talking...

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Ralphie
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 01:03 PM

Much as I concur wholeheartedly !!!
I don't think I've ever seen so many rude words on one thread!!
Ralphie
Anyway, he's just about to contract "Altzheimers" disease,apparently.... be miraculously cured on Monday, and be out by next weekend....!

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: nutty
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 01:42 PM

Latest news is that he's going to appeal and that it's unlikely that he will have his knighthood rescinded even if he does serve time in prison.
So he will still expect to be called SIR.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 01:46 PM

Yeah, but we all know what knighthood is worth any more.

Alex
but nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords...

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Ralphie
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 01:48 PM

How do spell "SIR" nutty???
"CUR" perhaps ? R

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Gareth
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 02:14 PM

As much as I share the Nations joy over the banging up of Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare I do think that the suggestion that he should be tried for crimes against litriture over the top. I mean it would be cruel and inhumane for a jury of 12 to read his novels.

Still you never know - we might get "The ballard of Ford Open Prison" out of it.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GUEST,Neil
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 02:20 PM

Ah Joy! Right thinking folk always thought he was an odious wee shite! He has always been particularly unpopular up here in Scotland for some of his more absurd and xenophobic rantings....and for being a Tory bastard as well!

Maybe M'Lud will get some new story ideas when 'big Bobby the block daddy''touches base' with him in the jail tonight......couldn't happen to a nastier, slimy little turd.

NEIL

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GeorgeH
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 02:24 PM

Ah! A beautiful, rare moment of unanimity (?sp?) on Mudcat . . I always thought Archer was good for nothing, but now I know better . .

G'night all, I'm off home . . (Bought two new CDs last saturday and haven't even played them yet.

George

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: smallpiper
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 04:07 PM

SO I take it no one likes litle lord Jeff! I think it would be really good if he and not we had to pay for his time inside and I'm talking £'s here afterall he is loaded (and not just by the block daddy!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 04:25 PM

I think I probably disliked him more than I did Robert Maxwell

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 04:27 PM

Perhaps there should now be a proper enquiry into the death of Benny the bullshitter. After all the lovers of Diana the martyr were never shy of suggesting that the establishment had caused her car crash. What might have hapened to Archer if Coghlan had also been available as a witness?

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 04:30 PM

I have an impressive memory of the guy - I didn't know it was him at the time - if it was - (he wasn't anyone then, anyway). Last year, a photo of the event appeared in the paper, attributed to a different time, place and circumstance, where I could not have seen it.

I once saw a man who appeared as Puck in an amateur production of the Dream, outdoors in a Dover park, with the stage background provided by high privet hedges. Puck's entries were made over these hedges, aided by a small trampoline. V-e-r-y impressive. And last year, a picture of this production appeared in the press. It looked like the shots I remember, and it looked like Archer, and my family concur with me. Why it was necessary to set it somewhere else I can't think. But it was good!

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 05:13 PM

Well it's the kind of thing that doesn't matter - but if we were talking about the ceremonial customs of the Sea Dyaks we'd try to get it tight, so you might as well when it's the quirks of the English honours system.

Anyway the man isn't a Sir - if he was there's no problem in taking the knighthood away. It just needs the Queen, under instruction from the Prime Minister, to say off with his title, and he's no more a "Sir" than I am.

It happened to Anthony Blunt a few years ago when they found that before advising the Royal Family on their impressive art collection, he'd done a bit of spying for the Russians. Or rather, when the papers found out - the Royal Family and the Government had known about it for years, and they'd all decided to keep schtum, and he promised to stop the spying lark, and appears to have done so.

But Lords are another matter - it'd take a special act of parliament to do it, and the last time it happened was in 1917 when the peer in question was fighting in the German Army.

I couldn't work up a head of steam against Jeffrey Archer, not like against most of his mates. Of you think of the fella George Clooney played in Oh Brother Where Art Thou - well there's something of that about him. A conman on a roller coaster taking everyone for what he could get.

And I feel a certain gratitude to anyone who could show up everyone in the Tory party from Maggie Thatcher up look quite such pathetic dupes and sycophants.

Maybe he'll suddenly announce that he's really been a leftie all this time, and that's precisely why he did it all these years, to destroy the Tories. Yet another twist of the plot. And if he did there are some people who would believe him - and that's yet another twist...

It really is a shame he can't write better. Badly maybe, but a lot better.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 05:34 PM

Little to add really - other than the man typified the Tory ethos of money over morals. Having just watched Panorama it seems evident that the Tory leadership knew of his outrageous deceits and preferred to turn a blind eye - It will be sweet revenge if the Daily Star decide to sue him for the return of costs and damages -which is reckoned in today's terms to be around 2.2 million. Anyway -another one banged up to rights - let's hear it Hoorah Hoorah Hoorah!

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 05:51 PM

the man typified the Tory ethos of money over morals.

True, but he'd fit just as well in the New Model Labour Party, which has in effect adopted that same ethos.

(And The Daily Star incidentally is a really disgusing newspaper, even by the standards of the British tabloids.)

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 06:04 PM

Every time I see the thread title, I think "Jailer (Gaoler) purged for archery"

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 06:08 PM

I agree about the Daily Star McGrath, utter shite. Just to clarify I meant the money over morals remark in the context of those individuals within the Tory Ranks who sold their souls for personal gain, as opposed to New Labours strategy for public/private partnership a matter on which you and I may or may not agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Lanfranc
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 06:20 PM

Your Stars for Today

Sagittarius

An unexpected decision will give you a nasty shock, but never mind - time is a great healer!

FIAT IUSTITIO, RUIT COELO

(Let justice be done, though the heavens fall)

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Bagpuss
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 06:21 PM

Yes, Archer will now have plenty of time in which to steal ideas for new stories.....

And maybe he will study for a real degree instead of the ficticious one he has held for many years.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 06:27 PM

Oh dear - I'm a Sagittarian...

I'd like to believe in the distinction Ickle Dorrit made there. Then I remmember Robert Maxwell - to name a total crook who was really big in the Labour Party, but who's not in a position to get litigious, unlike...

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: 8_Pints
Date: 19 Jul 01 - 07:06 PM

Don't forget either the point raised by Emma Nicholls on the Newsnight programme. He raised millions of pounds for the Kurds following the Sadam Hussein persecutions, but none of it appears to have reached the intended beneficiaries.

Bob vG

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 03:48 AM

Never liked Archer, but I do feel for his wife. The latest news suggests that she may be facing charges. She always seemed so honest. Perhaps living with a shit rubs off?
Patrish

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 04:21 AM

Don't waste too many tears on Mary. She was fully aware of his serial philandering before the '87 libel trial, and yet told the court that theirs was a rock-solid marriage.
And, during the trial, the probity of poor Monica Coghlan, the prostitute to whom he admitted giving £2000 to "disappear", hinged at one point on whether or not Archole had a spotty back. The fragrant Mary told the drooling judge, Mr Justice Caulfield, that his back was of marmoreal smoothness and that therefore the drab must have been lying.
Yet I have a friend who, for his sins, has played squash against Archer (a testy, irritable sportsman) and shared a locker room with him - and he could have testified that the odious little shit has a back like a nutmeg grater.
Mary was also supposed to be in charge of the disbursement of Archer's £500,000 libel winnings to various charitable causes. Funnily enough, very few of them received anything. Yet the summer-house in the grounds of the Old Rectory at Grantchester (where Mary lives - and where the poet Rupert Brooke once stayed and wrote "stands the clock at ten to three...") was lavishly restored as an office for her.
It is said by unwiser men than me (who would hate to be sued, so what follows if obviously pure fantasy) that an "arrangement" was reached between the two scheming, conniving spouses (spice?) - to whit, that in return for support in court, Mary would trouser the winnings and then be allowed to lead a separate life from Jeffrey - which she certainly has.
She is, undoubtedly, a very gifted chemist and one of the brightest academics of her generation at Cambridge. She is also, however, an odd fish. And I used to fancy her something rotten, long ago!


As for Archer writing another book - that would be interesting. He has actually "written" very little since his first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, which was written to save his arse after he went bankrupt thanks to some dodgy dealing in a company called Aquablast.
Since then, much of his work has actually been ghosted by his long-suffering editor, with Jeffrey providing merely the thinnest of outlines - and those frequently plagiarised from other sources.
And when he bangs on about how successful he is, that is because he is an accomplished salesman and an unrelenting bully.
The staff at his publisher's loathe him with a passion, because he is constantly ringing up to badger them to plug his dreadful books, organise signings and roadshows and general force the pap down the throats of the public.
Sorry for the vitriol here, but I have had dealings with the man and have long had reason to despise and detest him. I can only shake my head at Mary Archer's apparent perfidy. As I said, a strange woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 04:33 AM

I think it serves him right, if he did'nt lie and make trouble they woud'nt send him to jail.john

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 04:34 AM

"Help Desk, what appears to be the problem?"

"Ah, I'm having a little problem with Microsfoft Word."

"And the nature of this problem, Sir?

"I've just written another novel and I can't get the text to justify..."

"....is it full justification you're after, Mister....er?"

"Not Mister - Lord. It's Lord Archer, Jeffrey Archer. I'm quite well known in writing circ...."

"I'm sorry, Sir. There's nothing that can justify another Jeffrey Archer novel. Goodbye."

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GUEST,Patrish
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 04:36 AM

Thanks for the info, don't feel sorry for her anymore. I agree she is a strange one.......
I wonder what the basis of his appeal is going to be(or ever was)
Patrish

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 06:54 AM

OK, so we start a "Free the Grantchester One" campaign, get Larry Otway over here to defend his human rights and....Oh, sorry, I must have forgotten my medication...
When this news filtered into our training session yesterday thanks to an e-mail from Herself, the place erupted in spontaneous joy, whatever the political leanings of the persons present!
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Les from Hull
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 07:32 AM

Pat - the basis of his appeal will be "I've got lots of money and can afford really expensive lawyers who are more interested in money than justice"

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: CET
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 08:01 AM

Les: That was a silly and juvenile comment. Anybody over the age of 18 ought to know that it is the advocate's duty to represent his client fearlessly and vigorously, in accordance with the law, whatever his personal opinion of the client might be. Dr. Johnson understood that more than 200 years ago.

CET

Subject: RE: BS: Archer jailed for perjury
From: Les from Hull
Date: 20 Jul 01 - 08:35 AM

So if anyone without vast financial resources was in Archer's situation they would get a fearless, vigorous and skilful advocate to argue their case for them, would they? It must be awful for these lawyers, having to accept money to defend someone who is convicted of perverting the course of the justice they believe in so much. And the more money you have, the more fearlessness and vigour you can afford.

I certainly didn't say that all lawyers are like that. I have lots of respect for lawyers who use their skills to defend the weak and oppressed. But I'm sure that there will be teams of lawyers looking through the transcripts of the trial to see if they can find some nebulous legal hook to hang a case on. Would that happen if Archer was poor, or black, or Irish?

Les