Jeffrey Archer, who has died aged 86, was irrepressible, though not necessarily in a good way. Ordinary humans would be sunk by the allegations of lies, thefts, frauds, gussied-up CVs, expenses fiddles, charity swindles, plagiarisms, insider trading deals, funding illicit coups and – perhaps most unforgivable of all – unpleasantness to underlings that dogged Archer’s life. But Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare – bestselling novelist, disgraced politician, one-time athlete and convicted liar – was not ordinary: he was what the Titanic was designed to be, unsinkable.
One morning in September 2000, for instance, Archer emerged from Wimbledon police station. He had just been charged with perjury for persuading a friend to lie for him during his 1987 libel action against the Daily Star newspaper, which had claimed he had paid a sex worker to buy her silence.
