Archer's fall: His was a life built on fiction. But in the final chapter, the facts caught up with him

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Archer jailed: main story

The case in detail

From peer to prisoner

The enigmatic Mary Archer

Archer's life story

Leading article: Strip Archer of his peerage

David Aaronovitch: Put him in therapy

Anne McElvoy: An evening with the penthouse lord

The women in his life

A spell of charm

Archer's family

His battle with the media

The court

The judge

The barrister

The opening sentence of Jeffrey Archer's next novel is: "Our whole life can be changed by little things on which we have no influence."

The book concerns a man and woman, who are married. She's a teacher at university. He's a lawyer. They try very hard to have a child. She has two miscarriages and a stillborn girl. Finally, at 42, she becomes pregnant and the child nearly dies. They name him Lester Matthew Davenport. She calls him Lester; he calls him Matthew.

They are happily married and adore the boy. They never quarrel. They send him to primary school. When it's time for secondary school, they argue over the choice of school. So ends Chapter One.

In the second chapter, Matthew goes to Jefferson High. In the third, Lester goes to Talbot Academy. So the book settles down, following the two very different lives of Matthew and Lester. The point, says Archer, is that "you see how the decisions made by others influence your whole life. You follow the two of them. All the things that happen are caused by decisions made by other people ..."

It is pure Archer: an obsession with how some people achieve power and most do not. There are parallels with his own life. He is one of two sons born to his mother, Lola. The first, also called Jeffrey, was given away for adoption and led a miserable childhood. Renamed David Brown, he went on to live a life of domestic obscurity in the West Country, bringing up his family, watching cricket and voting either for Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

The second, doted on by his mother – though emotionally detached from his much older father (she was 27, he was 65 when Archer was born) – embarked on a dizzying journey of fame, fortune and public acclaim. While he never quite gained real power, he certainly, at times, exerted a degree of influence within the Conservatives.There are other similarities, too: Archer's wife, Mary, is a university academic; their first child, William, was born prematurely and almost died; they had two sons who have led very different lives. They wanted to have a third child – a daughter, they hoped. But, according to Mary, Jeffrey had run into financial difficulties at that stage in his odyssey, which meant they could not have afforded to educate her. Therefore the two boys were denied the possibility of a sister by the decision of their parents.

The book is called Serendipity. Another Archer touch: serendipity was voted the most popular word in the English language in a survey last year, so he used it for his book. Smart, that.

How do we know all this about a book that has yet to appear? Because, in his inimitable fashion, Archer has told people about it. Earlier this year, he gave a pre-publication interview about Serendipity, for the use of his publishers, HarperCollins, which included the remark: "All the things that happen are caused by decisions made by other people. .." What he actually went on to say in full, was: "Or even decisions that you made yourself that you could have changed, that you didn't think would be of any importance."

There is more than one Jeffrey. This is the contrite Jeffrey, the full-of-regrets Jeffrey, the Jeffrey who realises he's been a silly boy but begs for forgiveness and understanding. When faced with a trial brought on by events that happened more than a decade ago, and for an act that he might not have committed if he'd only thought at the time about the consequences, he bares his soul – to sell his latest book.

Throwing himself on the mercy of others is an Archer trait. Like his books, the words he uses seem to become repetitive. At 61, it would seem, he's been apologising most of his life, starting with his first proper job, when he was forced to eat humble pie to the executive of the National Birthday Trust, a charity encouraging research into baby mortality, for his poor record when he was director general. He had been "extremely foolish" in several matters, he had made "a disastrous mistake" in relation to a scheme that left the organisation nursing a hefty bill, he was "sincerely sorry" for what he had done. It made no difference: he lost the post.

He did it again when he pleaded with a journalist not to write a story about him fiddling his expenses while at his second job at the United Nations Association, a British charity promoting the United Nations. And again, when he stood down as an MP, having made a rash investment in a Canadian firm called Aquablast that turned sour and left him facing bankruptcy. "It was a foolish investment and I was a fool to get involved. I can't expect people to have trust and respect for a man who has behaved so stupidly. So I am doing the honourable thing," he said.

And again, when stopped leaving a Toronto store with three suits he had not paid for. He was terribly sorry but he did not realise he had left the shop. He was believed and no charges were brought.

And again, when he threw himself on the mercy of David Montgomery, then the editor of the News of the World, and asked him not to publish an account of how Archer had been caught offering £2,000 to Monica Coghlan, a prostitute, to help her go abroad and prevent the press from reaching her.

"Let me say to you one thing, and one thing clearly, so you know for the rest of your life," he said. "I believe I have an outside chance of being the chairman of the party if this dies. I believe I have an outside chance of doing some work in my life that I would be proud of, and I would like that privilege.

"I realise I have made a fool of myself, and I am telling you the truth about making a fool of myself."

And yet again, when challenged about just how much money his Simple Truth campaign had raised for the oppressed Kurds in Iraq. Archer claimed triumphantly that Simple Truth had raised £57m, a staggering amount. But Western governments were already pledging cash for the Kurds before he came to their rescue. Simple Truth had been successful, but not as dramatically as he claimed. Archer, it seemed, was confusing – deliberately or otherwise – the amount given by the whole of the West for the Kurds with the amount donated specifically to Simple Truth.

Asked to explain how his achievement had surpassed even that of Bob Geldof and Live Aid (£48m), he said: "I should have said to every single person promising money to pledge it under the name Simple Truth. But what I said was, please give to the Kurds. After all, they were the ones who really mattered. Maybe I made a mistake."

And again, when he admitted to having made "a grave error" in buying, on behalf of someone else, shares in Anglia Television, a company in which his wife was a director and which, unbeknown to anyone outside the board, was facing a takeover bid.

And again, presumably, when the existence of his affair with Sally Farmiloe, an actress, became public in 1999. What took place between Archer and his wife is not known but his uncharacteristic silence when he refused to answer questions and her sombre appearance and mood spoke of yet more anguish, of foolish mistakes and sorrow (although those who know the couple maintain their marriage has always been "open" and it was the fact of being found out and putting Mary once again under the public spotlight that had so displeased her).

And again, in November 1999, when he stood down as a candidate for the London mayoral election after confessing that he had asked a friend to concoct an alibi for him. Archer, said his publicist, was "very hurt, very upset, very remorseful" at having to leave the contest.

Defenders of Archer say he is all right, really. As Alan Clark once said: "I know I ought to resist him, but I find him irresistible." They, and us, laugh at his behaviour, at his Toad of Toad Hall ways. He is the host of Krug and cottage pie parties, owner of Rupert Brooke's Old Vicarage at Grantchester, darling of the Tory blue rinse constituency circuit, barnstorming public speaker, devoted servant of Thatcher and Major, desperately keen to please and to serve as Tory deputy chairman and would-be mayor of London.

His boasting is ridiculous, but we love him for it. He talks of being on the same literary plane as Graham Greene, F Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens, and we snigger. When he talks of the lengths he goes to in researching his books, a wry smile passes our lips. For his book, The Eleventh Commandment, he said he went deep into the world of the Russian mafia – something most Western crime investigators find difficult. "I told them I was doing a book on them and that I wanted some facts, and they were only too happy and seemed proud of what they were doing. I spent the night from 10 till four in the morning with the mafia in the clubs and their meeting places, and I did feel sick and the whole thing was evil. They have no fear."

He says he writes his books, painstakingly, by hand and we nod. But we also know that they are heavily rewritten by others. He owes an enormous debt to Richard Cohen, his long-time editor, for crafting them into bestsellers. Likewise, when a man crows of having made "£5m so far this year" over lunch, or directs guests seeking the lavatory at one of his parties in his apartment on the Thames to go "past the Picasso and left at the Matisse", it is hard to take him seriously.

We wonder at the sheer braggadocio of a man who asked three journalists to leave his hotel room during the Tory conference while he took a call from the Prime Minister. They were pacing up and down in the corridor outside, waiting for Archer to finish, when Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP, asked them why there were there. Mr Soames said what Archer had said was impossible: the Prime Minister was sitting on the conference platform.

The Archer legend is littered with such tales, most of which are passed between journalist, politician and publisher. That is the point: to the snobbish, London-oriented media-Westminster clique he may be a joke; but to the public at large he is a self-made millionaire, who went bust and clawed his way back, writing books that most people cannot write, and, let us not forget, paying off every penny he owed. His novels may not be masterpieces but they sell in vast quantities – not just here but around the world.

And he went to Oxford – if only, it seems, with three O- levels. Who cares if he got a DipEd and not technically a full degree? He was there – and for most of the population that seems an achievement in itself.

He is often described as a former "world-class athlete" – and, being Archer, he does not deny the phrase. He wasn't, but he did get a blue and he was, in 1964, in the top 20 in Britain for the 100 yards sprint. When BBC2's Have I Got News For You showed him making three false starts in one race the audience roared. At least, though, he was there, taking part.

Fine points of fact that seem important to journalists and his political enemies matter little to ordinary people. Anyone who has ever seen Archer rally the Tory faithful or inspire a business conference can vouch for the fact that he is a genuine motivator and orator. He is rehearsed and scripted, but which great performers aren't? His enthusiastic performances at post-dinner charity auctions are fantastic to behold, pushing guests into spending far more than they ever intended. Nobody in public life can have been the victim of such a brilliantly researched and insightful biography as Archer, yet Michael Crick's Stranger Than Fiction damaged him hardly at all.

There is a darker, more calculating side to Archer – one that should make even his most ardent supporters question their instincts. Just as there is the "Just William" Jeffrey who admits to making decisions that, with hindsight, he should not have made, so too there is another, quite different Jeffrey who is arrogant, cunning and brooks no opposition to his quest for self-advancement.

His whole life has been dedicated to the furtherance of himself. To understand him you have to go back to one of his earliest memories, to his primary school: "I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power."

Put that alongside many of his feints and tricks, the ones we like to laugh about, and a different picture emerges. He got into Oxford with the barest of qualifications. Well done him. But he has milked the connection for all it is worth ever since. He writes pot-boilers (or others help him write them). But they make him millions, enough money to entertain the great and the good, to command a seat at the top political tables, to gain him first a knighthood, then a peerage.

His novel, The Eleventh Commandment, carried on the cover the words, "No 1 Bestseller" before a copy was sold. Pure Jeffrey. But such claims are made for a reason: they help to sell more copies and to make Archer more millions.

One give-away as to his true character is the way he behaves in private, when the cameras are switched off. As anyone will testify who has ever crossed swords with him, the private Archer is very different from the amusing, charming public figure. The American biographer Kitty Kelley tells how she was once at dinner with Archer. "We were seated next to each other at the head table. When he arrived, I turned to introduce myself. 'Mr Archer, I am' – He cut me off. 'I am Lord Archer. You may call me Lord Archer.'" In the same exchange he told Kelly he did not fancy blondes like her. "I far prefer the knickers of that dark-haired woman over there."

He called his two Kurdish assistants Bean Kurd and Lemon Kurd. At a dinner of high-flying women, he complained that the wine was "Ugandan". At the same event, a woman who happened to be Jewish told him she was reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok. "You Jews, all you Jews want to read about is other Jews," he said. When the woman protested that the book was about father and son relationships, back came the reply: "Jew sons, Jew fathers and Jew relationships, I'm sure." And he wanted to be Mayor of London.

In 1994, Archer was the subject of a secret Department of Trade and Industry insider dealing inquiry into share buying in Anglia. For once, his carefully nurtured network of influence worked against him when someone in the know, fearful the whole thing would be swept under the carpet by Archer's fellow Tories, tipped off a friendly journalist. It looked, for a time, as though Archer was heading for a calamitous fall. In the end, the DTI inspectors decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Their report has never been published.

Archer, as was his wont, retained the services of a grand and expensive lawyer, Lord Mischon. In a statement, Lord Mischon said of the inspectors: "They can accordingly be taken to have concluded, as Lord Archer has maintained throughout, that this transaction was not carried out with the benefit of any insider information."

There is no evidence for this assertion. Neither is there any proof of the further claim of Archer and his supporters that he was "cleared" by the inspectors. Lack of evidence is not the same as acquittal. Unfortunately, while this distinction was being made by some journalists and politicians, others, and the wider public, chose – not for the first time – to go along with Archer.

It is this ability to wriggle free that has stood him in good stead, ever since he messed up his first job, then the second, then with the suits in Canada and, famously, with Monica Coghlan, and the Kurds, and the alleged insider dealing. It is an incredible record – one that may yet be added to.

A group of Tories were talking about Archer and comparing his plight with that of another fallen party star, Jonathan Aitken. When Aitken went to jail he repented and found God, said one. They said that if Archer went to prison he would end up running the Prison Service. That is the difference. That is Archer.