Editorial: For Chris Huhne jail is no bar to literary success - in fact, it's inspiration

Like Aitken and Archer before him, Huhne may well be the latest in a long line of politicians to turn a spell behind bars to literary advantage

Chris Huhne is finding life in prison “fascinating”, according to his new pen friend, Jonathan Aitken. The experience has fired up the disgraced former minister’s journalistic instincts and he has come across a number of good stories, Mr Aitken adds.

We should not be surprised by the lack of contrition, or the view of prison as useful “material”. Politicians have a history of turning their spells behind bars to literary advantage as Mr Aitken and Jeffrey Archer, the former Tory party chairman jailed in 2001, showed.

Mr Archer churned out a three-volume memoir on the back of his experience while Mr Aitken drew on his time for two autobiographical works. Neither approaches the bar set by Adrian Nastase, the former Romanian Prime Minister who wrote two such impressive books in jail that the prison board released him early. Mr Huhne can only hope.