British novelist and former Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer dies aged 86

FORMER POLITICIAN JEFFREY Archer has died aged 86, his publisher said in a statement.

Archer, who was a Conservative MP for five years before serving as the party’s deputy chairman, died “suddenly and peacefully at his home between writing sessions” on Monday, Harper Collins said.

He had a successful career as a novelist alongside politics and was made a life peer in 1992.

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His political career was paused in 2001 with the disgrace of his being imprisoned for four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

An Old Bailey jury found that he had lied in a libel action he had brought against The Star newspaper 13 years earlier, in which he was awarded £500,000 (€590,000) damages.

He was released early in 2003 and returned to the House of Lords until he retired in 2024.

Kate Elton, Harper Collins UK chief executive and Archer’s editor, said: “It has been one of the great privileges of my publishing life to have been Jeffrey Archer’s editor.

“He was the master storyteller and an editor’s dream – phenomenally hard-working, utterly committed to completing draft after draft to get every word as perfect as possible, and a true champion of the ‘team’ nature of great publishing.”