Archer could return to limelight

Archer has a reputation for bouncing back from setbacks

After serving half of his four-year sentence for perjury, all eyes are on Archer's next move, with speculation that he plans to write more, settle old scores and even return to politics.

Biographer and BBC Newsnight journalist Michael Crick said there was no prospect of Archer lying low for long.

"It's not as if he is going to go off and disappear and go off and do good works in the way that say John Profumo did 40 years ago after the Profumo scandal or the way Jonathan Aitken did.

"Archer will want to return to the limelight pretty quickly. He won't be going around doing lots of television interviews today and tomorrow.

"But by the autumn he will start doing lots of television and newspaper profiles and he will want to return to public life in the way it was before."

It is a changed world that you go back to after being in an institutional world Jonathan Aitken Disgraced MP

"In many ways Archer will be a bigger draw than ever. He is a very, very good speaker, he is very, very good at drumming up the money.

"But charities should be wary of employing him. We only have to look at what happened with the Kurdish campaign 12 years ago where he grossly exaggerated how much money he had raised."

And it was clear that many of the stories circulating about Archer planning his revenge on old enemies had been "hyped up" by the media, Mr Crick asserted.

"There isn't a great deal he can do - it's not as if he can go around carrying on issuing libel writs because he doesn't have a reputation left to defame."

Penal reform

Publicist Max Clifford also advised against continuing his fight to clear his name.

He told BBC News 24 that the former politician should "act with humility" because the public would find it easier to forgive him.

Mr Clifford suggested Archer "make a clean sweep" with a one-off documentary explaining why he did what he did.

Mr Crick said Archer might be planning a political comeback some way down the line, perhaps even making another move to be mayor of London.

"He will turn up at the Lords in due course and he will try and speak in due course.

"He will pick an issue where he is particularly qualified to speak, something like penal reform or drugs in jails. But the Conservatives would be utterly stupid to let him back."

Jonathan Aitken told GMTV the peer's joy at release would be tempered by concern at how he will readjust to life outside.

"He on the one hand will be full of exhilaration that it is about to be over - he will be free, he will be out there in the world away from prison and that is a joyful experience.

"On the other hand... it is a changed world that you go back to after being in an institutional world, and it really does take a bit of skill and delicacy and sensitivity to readjust to well, rather like a deep sea diver coming up, you need a period of decompression and I hope that is what he will get."

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