Jeffrey Archer (at the time of writing - July, 2001) is serving a 4 year sentence for perjury.

His first appearance in British satirical magazine Private Eye was on the 5th December, 1969 (issue 208) when they set out in some detail allegations originating with Humphrey Berkeley, the chair at that time of the United Nations Association, that Archer had abused his expense account with that organisation. Lord Archer-sick-of-him (as he's sometimes known in that esteemed periodical) was a Tory candidate for a safe seat in a byelection happening at the time, and when the Eye suggested to Berkeley that he was a less than perfect prospective parliamentarian, Berkeley responded: "Parliament? He should be in a remand home!"

Archer had previously been employed as an expense account consultant by the (Tory dominated) Greater London Council of 1967. For filling out expense forms on their behalf, he was granted a fee of 10 percent of the resulting claim.

Here are some quotes from the 27 July, 2001, edition of Private Eye (from which the above information is also drawn)

"If someone has 17 previous offences for robbery, it might just be a clue that while out on bail they will do it again, and I can add that I am sick and tired of reading about young offenders who put two fingers up to the police because they know they can go and commit exactly the same offence again without any fear of being punished"

--Jeffrey Archer,
to the Conservative party conference debate on Law and Order, 6th October, 1993


"At the height of his success it almost seemed that [Jeffrey Archer] was being offered to the public on a tray as a sample of what it meant to be a successful Conservative. As his own tale became less convincing, so he was advanced by the party, first to the Lords and then to candidacy as Mayor of London. What a want of judgement!"

Daily Telegraph, 20 July, 2001