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Friday, 20
July 2001 The true
tragedy of the Archer affair is the long list of his accomplices by MICHAEL
GOVE Is he not
flagrant? Is there not something, despite his ruin, still brashly,
compellingly, even winningly, brazen about Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare?
Undaunted by his lack of talent, unabashed in the presence of greatness,
unapologetic about his ambition, who could fail to warm to the cheery
chutzpah of an adventurer for whom no obstacle was too great? Who could now fail
to feel sympathy at the final crushing of this incarnation of human
resilience? Me. I can
understand why the generous-hearted will feel a Christian sympathy for
Archer. There are few spectacles so galling as the sight of commentators
lining up to kick a man when he's down. But having found it quite lonely
kicking him when he was up, the real hypocrisy would be turning away the
crowd now. This man deserves
it all ? the Quiverful of Arrows on his suit, the payment of his costs in
full, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, and the knowledge that when the
history of Tory Sleaze is written his name will be First Among Equals. The
quality of mercy would be strained too far if applied to Jeffrey. He betrayed
every one and every thing with which he came into contact. No lie was too
outrageous, no fraud too audacious, no real opponent ever dealt with in a way
which was gracious. Archer and
his people told me often to my face, and to my colleagues behind my back,
that the criticisms I mounted of his grotesque inappropriateness for public
life were offences against fair play. I was convicting without evidence.
Jeffrey was guilty only of a child's exuberance, a showman's love of excess.
They are now shown, comprehensively, to have been the lies of a bully who sought to
stifle all criticism and use the machinery of the Conservative Party to swat
away all opposition. And as our
reporters recount, his life was built on lies. There is no need, and
certainly no space, here to run through all his crimes. The fullest account
of them is given in Michael Crick's brilliant biography Stranger than
Fiction. Yet even before Crick picked up his pen the sins of Archer were
obvious to all who had eyes to see. From the way in which he defrauded one of
his first, and most generous
employers, at the United Nations through his shoplifting adventures to his
obvious plagiarism and insider dealing, the man stank. Yet those
of us who drew attention to the stench of corruption were treated as though
we had upbraided our own grandmothers for breaking wind. In these pages,
warning after warning was given to the Tories. Allowing Archer to run for
Mayor of London was to let a train freighted with dynamite pass a forest of
signals flashing danger. But not only did the warnings go unheeded, those of
us who warned were damned as bitter wreckers. Did we not
realise that Jeffrey had worked tirelessly for the party, and also
energetically for charity? Well yes, of course he did, because all his ostentatious
good works were no more than the expensive scent designed to mask the moral
stink. A seat on a fundraising committee is the first line on any confidence
trickster's CV, from the bogus Lady Aberdour to the utterly fraudulent Lord Archer.
Charity is the first refuge of the scoundrel. And hospitality the second.
Archer knew, as Maxwell and Aitken had before him, that at the merest whiff
of Krug, politicians would roll over and provide cred. He won a free
porkbarrel of influence with every case of vintage champagne he bought. By
turning up to his parties, Thatcher, Major and Hague provided both the sheen
of respectability and the access to power Archer needed to sustain his
confidence tricks. That
successive Tory leaders were so compromised is a terrible commentary on their
judgment. They allowed him to become the public face of their party. They
even lent him the conference platform in the Nineties to mount a shameless philippic
against the Tories failure to deal toughly with criminals. His meretricious cry
to Michael Howard to "stand and deliver!" is the highest point hypocrisy
has yet scaled. There are
none so blind as those who cannot see beyond their next freebie. At the end
of a truly terrible week for the Conservatives what can be learnt? Only one
thing really needs to be. Consider how you look to the rest of Britain.
However carefully your policies are tailored to the nation's needs, they will
count for little as long as the salesmen are the same insular, arrogant,
petty place-seeking, gilt-edged invitation hunting, ethically challenged
careerists. The
saddest aspect of this whole story is that when a shameless adventurer
looking for a home chose the Tories, Archer had hit the bull's-eye. |