Lord Archer: The outrageous extrovert who lived a life tainted by scandal

Like a twist in one of his novels, Jeffrey Archer's shock death came in the middle of the Conservative Party conference.

The millionaire novelist, former MP and Tory deputy chairman and would-be London mayor lived a life tainted by scandal and controversy.

But he was a massive figure at Conservative conferences during the Thatcher and Major years, hosting legendary late-night champagne and shepherd's pie parties in his luxury suite in the conference hotel.

He was a warm-up act to both Margaret Thatcher and John Major ahead of their conference speeches, held fundraising auctions and was a wit, raconteur, outrageous extrovert and darling of the activists.

It was claimed - in the political folklore of the 1980s and 90s - that the "blue rinse brigade" of Tory ladies at the party conference were rather smitten by the raffish charm of the colourful cad with a twinkle in his eye.

More: Lord Jeffrey Archer dies

As well as his hugely successful novels, plays and TV series, Jeffrey Archer was MP for Louth in Lincolnshire from a by-election in 1969 until he was forced to quit in 1974 because he was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Mrs Thatcher appointed him deputy chairman in 1985, but within a year he was forced to resign after the News of the World reported that he had arranged for a call girl, Monica Coglan, to be paid off by an associate at London's Victoria station.

He quit late on the Saturday night. But that wasn't the end of the story. A subsequent libel action against the Daily Star led to a perjury charge and he was sent to prison just when he had been campaigning to be selected as Tory candidate for London mayor.

Former minister Steve Norris stepped in as Tory candidate at the 11th hour but lost to Ken Livingstone, who'd been barred from standing for Labour but ran and won as an independent.

A turbulent relationship with the press

Archer loathed the News of The World editor, David Montgomery, who ran the Monica Coghlan story, and Lloyd Turner, who was editor of the Daily Star, which also ran the story. Friends of Turner later claimed Archer's ruthless pursuit of their former editor sent him to an early grave.

A few years later, when I was political correspondent of the Today newspaper and Montgomery was editor, Archer turned me away from one of his conference champagne parties at the Highcliffe Hotel in Bournemouth.

The reason: his vitriolic hatred of Montgomery. "How can you work for that man?" he spat at me. Fortunately, after I moved on to the Daily Express, edited by his close friend Sir Nicholas Lloyd, our relations were fine and were cordial until his death.

Archer was also a big fan of the late-night paper reviews on Sky News, telling me that he and wife Mary used to watch them in bed in their penthouse flat overlooking the River Thames!

But Jeffrey Archer was more than a party conference jester and host of lavish and star-studded champagne parties.

He played a crucial role in the election of John Major after Margaret Thatcher quit in 1990, driving to Major's home in Great Stukeley in his Huntingdon constituency with his nomination papers.

Major had retreated from London complaining of what was regarded at the time as a mysterious bout of toothache caused by a pesky wisdom tooth.

So Jeffrey Archer was a major figure in Tory politics as well as a bestselling author. And his sudden death in the middle of the Conservative Party conference was just like a plot line from one of his novels.

Fact stranger than fiction? In Jeffrey Archer's life it certainly was.

(c) Sky News 2026: Lord Archer: The outrageous extrovert who lived a life tainted by scandal