this just in - 4 years for lord archer

The only bad aspect - apart from Monica C. not living to see the lying shit go down - is the ghastly mock-penitent actually-defiant novel that we'll get in 5 years.

Ah perjury. What a rubbish crime to go to jail for, too!

please let it be true

Four years is lenient. It's not that I want him to 'suffer' (cf. Nick D); but I like to see Tories, of whatever stripe, do badly, in whatever way. Perhaps I have a rough-and-ready suspicion that when Tories do badly it is good for Britain, or the World if you prefer.

I just heard that his sentence came with the addition that he serve a minimum of two years, unfortunately you know that that's exactly how long he'll do.

i did celebrate when jonathon aitken was sent down though. he was my mp for many years, and it was no secret what a totally evil gun running slimeball he was. he called my dad a communist once, for suggesting that education spending should be targeted where it was most needed. sword of truth, my arse.

So whole idea of our justice system rather relies on the idea that you *cannot* lie on the stand. (REmember, perjury isn't about common or garden lies, it's about lying under oath.) Clearly, most people who are committed for nastier crimes have already committed perjury. Maybe it's one of those last resort accusations (like how they always get gang bosses guilty of *far* greater crimes for "tax evasion" when nothing else will stick) but the whole idea of perjury being a horrid crime is that it is trying to keep some sort of modicum of respect for the Justice System, even when it's clearly a joke.

I mean... wait, I should not be posting under the influence. Except damn, I haven't taken any cold medication since this morning. Maybe I should take some more and stop being feverish on proper threads and stick to being feverish on threads about stats cocks and skinny boys...

Lloyd George shafted the toffs forever c.1912. If public school/oxbridge = toffs, then half the people on this board are toffs, and who here — except possibly Tarden — has the power to influence nationals, multi-nationals, etc etc?

But you're right that there are issues here for liberals who, in other circumstances, abhor the idea of justice being a retributional 'he should suffer' affair. The thing is, community service is seen as the soft option, despite the best efforts of liberal reformers arguing that that's not the case at all. And people don't like to see a system in which the kind of crime privileged people commit isn't punished as severely as violence and property crime.

Archer is smug because the world has let him get away with SO MUCH FOR SO LONG!! The books; what that judge said (HE shd be in jail, for being a retard...); the endless easily disproved lies...

I agree with you, though, roughly, about the distribution of power. (Hey! let's talk about John Pilger's prog last night.)

Is it true that half of ILE = public school / Oxbridge? I find that very hard to believe.

Yes, half of us *are* toffs, by that definition, including me, but how do you measure power? Because even though we don't hold any political or economic (directly) power, we do- as artists, musicians, novelists, journalists, tastemakers- hold a great deal more *cultural* power than the average cross section of society.

(Not sure what that point is in aid of, but...)

I am none of those things, Kate, and I suspect neither are most people on ILE. I did go to private school though. Just for the record.

Michael Young on the Meritocracy will answer most people's q's about upper classes/ruling classes issues.

It's because he's the sort of rich $cum who tosses around libel actions, even though he clearly did what he was alleged to have done, and wins (cf robert maxwell). To see someone of this ilk sent down is a rare pleasure indeed, no matter what side of the atlantic yr on.

xoxo

If you count what people do outside their dayjobs (as well as all the meeja hoar dayjobs that we do have here) I think you'll find we're far more of a taste-making lot than you think. F'example, I happen to know that RickyT Dj's in his spare time. So there.

Hard to expose people to new records at SF. Bands is easier. I mean, how many Pram fans had ever heard of The Starlets? Surely not more than 10. Records... everyone just buggers off.

Question: Which record did at least three people ask 'what was that?' at the last Strange Fruit?

Answer: Belle and Sebastian's 'Jonathan David'. Well.

Toffs are good! Politicians are bad! Hang them all!

Utterly fascinating. Crick pulls off the remarkable trick of writing about the original case in a way that leaves little doubt about Archer's guilt, without being libelous. Archer blagged, bluffed and lied his way into the heart of the British establishment and, until today, got away with it. Turns out his old man too was well dodgy, a bigomous fraud who claimed false military honours etc.

So I think about what Wilde had to go through and what Archer's comparatively calmer fate will assuredly be, for all that he'll serve (hopefully) twice as long a term, and I want to spit in the latter's face. He won't be emerging from prison with a De Profundis or a Ballad of Reading Gaol, I can tell you that much.

I'm fairly indifferent about the verdict (yadda yadda justice has been done etc), but George Alagiah had no problem sticking the knife in on the One O'Clock News. Headline: "Jeffrey Archer is a liar and a cheat".

Power is complex (I suspect), but that doesn't mean everyone on this thread is a dope.

I agree about Michael Young.

And what about Matthew Parris, and for that matter Jonathan Aitken, last night?

There are three of them, and they're actually really good!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4472638.stm

Archer 'rejoins the Tory party'

Lord Archer was jailed for perjury and spent two years in prison
Disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer is reported to have rejoined the Conservative Party.
In an interview with an Australian newspaper reprinted in the Times, Lord Archer says he recently rejoined his local party in Vauxhall, south London.

Lord Archer was expelled from the party in 2000 after he invented a false alibi in a libel case. He then served two years of a four-year term for perjury.

National Tory party officials say they cannot confirm or deny the reports.

A Conservative Party spokesman told the BBC he had no knowledge of whether Lord Archer, 61, had rejoined the party or not as membership was handled at a local level.

National party officials did not have access to local membership lists, the spokesman added.

He also said he was not aware of any discussions about the peer rejoining the Conservative benches in the Lords.

Lord Archer is reported to have spoken privately to the party's chief whip about this.

He returned to the upper chamber in May for the first time since his release from jail in 2003 and can sit as a "non-affiliated" peer.

The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot is the result of an intense collaboration between one of the world’s most popular storytellers—Jeffrey Archer—and one of the world’s leading biblical scholars—Francis J. Moloney. The project was as bold as it was simple. Jeffrey would write a story for 21st-century readers, while Moloney would ensure that the result would be credible to a 1st-century Christian or Jew.

The book, which is presented in gospel style with two-colour text, ribbon marker and gilded edges, and "written" by the son of Judas, is a highly readable and gripping account of the stories of Jesus and Judas, which will open a whole new debate among secular and religious readers.