Tories in a tailspin over Archer return

Last updated at 13:31 26 November 2005


Disgraced peer Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare has made a bid to rejoin the Conservative Party - though his application has yet to be processed.

Party headquarters said it understood that the peer has spoken to officials in Cambridgeshire, where he has a country home.

"We understand he has approached party officials in Cambridgeshire about joining," a party spokesman said. "But his application has not been processed at this point."

Less than an hour before confirming Lord Archer's move, party HQ had rebutted a report suggesting that he had made an approach to the association in Vauxhall, south London, where he has a luxury penthouse apartment.

At that point a spokesman said the party had "no record of Lord Archer rejoining the Conservative Party", adding that headquarters had been told by the Vauxhall association that Lord Archer had not joined them, and had not applied to do so.

Newspaper interview

A report in today's edition of The Times, based on an interview with the peer printed in The Australian newspaper, suggested that the best-selling author and one-time Tory deputy chairman recently rejoined the Vauxhall association.

The Australian article further suggested that Lord Archer had spoken privately to the party's Chief Whip about going back on the Tory benches.

In May, the peer returned to the Lords for the first time since he was released from jail in 2003 after serving two years of a four-year sentence for perjury.

Since his release from prison, the peer has been entitled to sit in the House of Lords as a "non-affiliated" peer.

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