Comment: So who is the real master of false alibis?

I

t has become conventional in the past week for people writing about Lord Archer to begin their articles with a confession or declaration of interest about the peer in question. Sometimes, indeed, this clearing of the throat takes up the entire available space. promise this will not happen here. But the recent rule requiring journalists to confess their consumption of Krug champagne and shepherd's pie (excellent in themselves but affected as a combination) seems to me sensible in the circumstances.

At any rate it is preferable to the convention adopted by the entire Conservative party, downwards from Mr William Hague, upwards to Lady Thatcher and sideways to Mr John Major. This is to pretend that Lord Archer never existed or, if he did, that he had nothing to do with them. "Archer? Believe there was a fellow of that name hangin' round the party once. Never knew him, 'm afraid."

last saw him on 11 October - my diary is perhaps more reliable than his - at the party for Lord Lamont's memoirs. As the Tatler of old used to put it, we enjoyed a joke. We then went our separate ways. n the 1980s went to one of his lunch parties at his flat on the Thames. There were present, among others, mran Khan (who, was interested to observe, drank a glass or two of white wine) and Lord Hanson, whose companies Ms Glenda Jackson used to extol in advertisements on television.

n the 1990s Lord Archer took over Lord McAlpine's late-night soirees at the Conservative conference. went to two or three over the years but did not become a regular attender. had both known and liked Lord McAlpine better. And there was often a rival and more agreeable soiree conducted by Lord Hesketh. Worst of all, Lord Archer would fuss endlessly about guests like an affronted dowager. His rule was that, in addition to senior politicians, only editors, political editors and political columnists should be allowed across his threshold. once took along Mr Paul Routledge as my guest. We were both then working at the Observer, Mr Routledge as political correspondent or No 2. Though highly regarded in the trade, he was not as famous then as he was subsequently to become. Lord Archer ordered his departure. felt awkward. Mr Routledge, am happy to relate, stood his ground, drank his (or Lord Archer's or, more likely, the Krug sparkling wine company's) champagne and refused to budge an inch. That is all have to say about my social relations with Lord Archer.

Let us now have a look at the position through Mr William Hague's eyes. n 1985 Jeffrey Archer was appointed joint deputy chairman (with the late Peter Morrison) of the Conservative Party by Margaret Thatcher. n 1986 he resigned to embark on his successful libel action against the Daily Star. n 1992 he was given a life peerage by Mr Major, a friend he had supported in the fight to succeed Lady Thatcher. n 1995 Mr Michael Crick published his masterly biography.

Lord Archer could have taken legal action against this as well but chose not to, presumably because what the book said about him was true, particularly about his early life. t did not demonstrate that he was unfit to sit in the Upper House. After all, Joseph Kagan, crony of and manufacturer of Gannex macs to Harold Wilson, was ennobled, went to prison for financial skulduggery and subsequently reappeared in their lordships' House.

n any case, there is no mechanism know of to deprive a peer of his seat apart from the Act which has just been passed. f there were, Mr Hague would doubtless try to start it up. For not content with depriving Lord Archer of his mayoral candidacy, he would also like to deprive him of his party membership. f he could take away his membership of the House of Lords, he would do that as well.

No, what Mr Crick's book showed was that Lord Archer, through his mendacity - still softened to "fantasising", "romancing" or "reinvention of himself" - had shown he was unfit to occupy a public position of any kind. But what was Mr Hague to do about it? Lady Thatcher still smiled on him. Mr Major continued to regard him as a friend. And Mr Hague himself used the gym in his block of flats free, gratis and for nothing, as he continued to do until recently.

Lord Ancram had asked him whether there was anything more to come out. Lord Archer replied there was not. The present party chairman has been condemned for accepting this assurance. But what else could he or any of us have done? He was more blameworthy for putting himself in a position where it was necessary to seek that assurance in the first place. The London Conservatives did the rest. They voted in Lord Archer by a majority of roughly three-to-one over Mr Steven Norris, who should by all known political rules have been appointed the candidate in his place.

Mr Hague inherited a Conservative culture, less snobbish than in the past - or differently snobbish - of accepting or, at least, tolerating and using Lord Archer. The leader is to be criticised less for allowing Lord Archer's candidacy to go forward than for the way in which he has behaved since that candidacy was jettisoned. He sometimes reminds me of the Welsh headmaster who, seeing two of his pupils sloping off in mid- morning, asked them where they were going.

"To play billiards in the town, Sir."

"O you wicked, wicked boys. hope you get caught."

Certainly the reference of Lord Archer's case to the Conservatives' own unused ethics committee is retrospective action of the most useless kind. t is not so much locking the door after the horse has bolted as locking it when the entire field of the Grand National are trotting round the back streets of Liverpool.

Similarly, Mr Hague and his young men have made the row over Mr Michael Ashcroft and his money much worse than it need have been. Mr Ashcroft should not have been made party treasurer in the first place, any more than Lord Archer should have been allowed to thrust himself forward as London's would-be mayor. Conservatives including, am sorry to say, Lord Ancram (who should know better) have now worked themselves into the position of maintaining that no one can either be deprived of or be prevented from contesting a political post unless he or she has first been convicted in a court of law or by some similar tribunal. The English legal phrase "natural justice" and the American "due process" are both misused in a political context.

For it is all great nonsense. Political appointments are not decided by employment tribunals; except, it seems, in the modern Conservative party. But once the appointment has been made, however imprudently, it is better to stick with it quietly than to fall into the traps set virtually monthly - and almost certainly in contempt of court - by the Times, which is being sued for libel by Mr Ashcroft.

As the Scriptures put it ( Samuel i,19): "How are the mighty fallen!" And yet Lord Archer was not among the politically mighty, any more than Mr Ashcroft is today. Lord Archer was a card, an opportunist, a desperate chancer and Conservative candidate for mayor of London. t is not as if he had been a member of the Government, as were not only Mr David Mellor but Mr Ron Davies, Mr Peter Mandelson and Mr Geoffrey Robinson. Mr Tony Blair surely needs to be reminded that accidents can happen and unfortunate events occur in even the best-ordered administrations.

n fact Mr Blair knows this perfectly well already. t is just that, unlike Mr Hague, he is adept at distancing himself from the scene of any crime. "Honest," he says, "it wasn't me, guv." t is Mr Blair rather than Lord Archer who is the master of the false alibi.