Desire Emmanuel with Agency Reports
Bestselling author and former politician, Jeffrey Archer, is dead. He was aged 86.
Archer sold more than 300 million books in his five-decade writing career, including the Clifton Chronicles and Kane and Abel, and often set the novels in his home town of Wellington, Somerset, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported.
In a statement, Archer’s publisher, HarperCollins, said the author died “suddenly and peacefully at home” on Monday during writing sessions.
The former Conservative MP was jailed for perjury in 2001 after being found guilty of lying and cheating in his 1987 libel case against the Daily Star.
Archer was born in north London in 1940 but soon moved to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, where his family bought a house from John Cleese’s mother.
In 1969, Archer was elected Member of Parliament for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth.
He served as an MP for five years before becoming Conservative Party deputy chairman.
He moved to the House of Lords in 1992 but was jailed for four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice in 2001.
He was found to have lied in libel action he had brought against the Daily Star newspaper, in which he was awarded £500,000 in damages.
The Star had alleged Archer had slept with a sex worker.
The peer was found by the court to have perverted the course of justice by asking a former friend to give him a false alibi and producing fake diary entries to back up his story.
He was also found to have perjured himself on oath during the libel trial.
He was released in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords until he retired in 2024.
Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, described Archer’s death as “devastating news.”
“We will miss him very much,” she told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday, adding that he had texted her earlier on Monday.
Badenoch said he was “very much loved by the Conservative family,” adding: “I’m glad that I saw him recently.”
Speaking about what she described as “other parts of his life,” she said: “He did serve his time, he made amends, and he wanted to do a lot of good in the world.”
Former prime minister, Sir John Major, said “we have lost a man who lived one of the most remarkable lives of our age,” and that he will be “much missed – and long remembered.”
Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth told BBC Breakfast that he was with Archer on Sunday. “I mean, literally 72 hours ago, doing a show in the West End of London celebrating this book, the publication, and he was in great form.”
