Archer to be satirised by BBC after rule change

The life story of the jailed Tory peer Jeffrey Archer is to be mocked in a BBC satire as part of a £10m package of political dramas announced by the corporation yesterday. Guy Jenkin, who wrote the Drop the Dead Donkey spoof on television journalism, is to turn his fire on the well-known tendency of Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare to embellish his life in Jeffrey Archer – The Truth.

Jane Tranter, the BBC's controller of drama commissioning, said the film, yet to be cast, would have been impossible five or six years ago because of stricter internal rules on depicting living people. "It is his life seen through his eyes, his contribution not just to national events but to world events," she said. "It is a very funny portrayal of how Jeffrey Archer might think his life has worked out."

He will be seen "generously taking the blame" over the prostitute scandal that eventually led to his downfall and he will even explain his purported influence on the Beatles.

But the Conservatives are not the only ones to be left squirming. New Labour will be another target in a two-part drama, The Project, about the lives and careers of four young Labour activists whose idealism is shattered by the reality of their party in power.

It has been researched through interviews with Labour Party members over the past three years. Key figures such as Alastair Campbell, the party's chief spin doctor, and Peter Mandelson were not approached.

It is a collaboration between Peter Kosminsky and Leigh Jackson, whose last work together was the BBC drama Warriors which was so compelling in its story of British peace-keepers in Bosnia that Army chiefs feared it would deter recruits. Jane Tranter admitted there was no "smoking gun" of revelations about how Labour worked and its important inner clique, because "absolutely everything has been smoked out for us".

But she said she thought it would be uneasy viewing for Labour. "It will be uncomfortable for them." A glut of political drama was coincidence, she added. "We respond to what the writers want to write about." All are likely to be seen this year or early next.

The other dramas are State of Play, a thriller set in Whitehall about the death of a young political intern who is having an affair with a high-flying New Labour minister. The series is being written by Paul Abbott, the author of Clocking Off. Another series, The Key, takes three generations of women to examine a century of unions and socialism in Scotland.

The BBC is riding high in drama on the back of successes such as the return of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which has been trouncing ITV on a Sunday night. Ms Tranter said its writers Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais were already working on storylines for another series.