The Sunday Telegraph Sunday 1 September 2019 *** 21
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I
t may be a long while since Jeffrey
Archer was involved in the front
line of the Conservative Party, but
he remains a politician to his very
fingertips. And so it is inevitable in
such turbulent times, and with the
Houses of Parliament dominating the
view from his spectacular Thames-
side penthouse apartment, that the
state of the nation keeps butting into
our conversation, which is supposed
to be about the new series of novels
he is unveiling this week.
“All hell is about to let loose next
Tuesday when Parliament returns,”
predicts Lord Archer of Weston-
Super-Mare, still a member of the
Upper Chamber. That much we can
all deduce but, still very much an
insider among Tory elder statesmen
and women, he goes further and
gives an insight into how the so far
short but already eventfulJeffrey Archer’s
unlikely friendship
with an ex-bobby
has provided novel
inspiration, the pair
tell Peter Stanford
‘Police officers like nothing
more than telling stories’
premiership of Boris Johnson is being
judged among the party’s old guard.
On the prorogation of Parliament,
he frames the crisis as, “in truth,
Rees-Mogg versus the Speaker, and
the Prime Minister versus the
Remainers”. And what’s the feeling
about how Johnson himself is
performing in Number 10?
This time, he takes longer to answer
and picks his words with care. “Boris
has been a breath of fresh air for his
supporters, and will have surprised
many of his detractors with his
determination, but be warned: he has
people against him who are equally
determined.”
Is he hinting at a concerted
Conservative plot by an old guard that
includes his old friend and former
prime minister, John Major – who has
joined a legal challenge to block the
suspension of parliament?
He will not say more. It is another
sort of plot he wants to talk about –
that found in his new novel, Nothing
Ventured, the first instalment in a
planned series of eight about a London
policeman, William Warwick, who
rises from bobby on the beat to
commander of the Met.
Which sounds remarkably like the
career of John Sutherland, a retired
chief superintendent, author of an
acclaimed memoir, Blue, about his 25
years in the Metropolitan Police, and
the man who is sitting next to ArcherSharing: Lord
Archer with John
Sutherland, on
whom he has
based the lead
character in his
new novels. Above,
Sutherland during
his police career‘Jeffrey is very rude
to me, and I
occasionally stand
up for myself ’
RII SCHROER FOR THE TELEGRAPHNothing Ventured
by Jeffrey Archer
(RRP £20) can be
bought now for
£16.99 at books.
telegraph.co.uk
or by calling
0844 871 1514today. Both the fictional Warwick and
the real Sutherland started out as
graduate entrants into the Met, but not
on some fast track, rather as constables
on the streets, after which both rose
rapidly through the hierarchy.
For 49-year-old Sutherland, though,
that progress was halted at the rank of
chief superintendent by a breakdown- the subject of his memoir. He had, he
writes, “seen one murder too many”.
“I’ll tell you, before John interrupts
me,” insists Archer. “I am an ambitious
man, and it was clear to me that John
was destined to be the commander of
the Met Police. And other people since
have told me, yes, he was destined to
be. So I had it straight out with him.
Did he want to be commander of the
Met Police? And ‘yes,’ he said, ‘I would
have loved to have done the job.’ ”
The pair make unlikely friends.
Sutherland had never read one of
Archer’s 37 bestsellers (he has some
275 million book sales behind him)
before they met, and Archer attracted
the wrong sort of police attention in
2001 when he was found guilty of
perjury and perverting the course of
justice in a high-profile 1987 libel case,
and was sentenced to four years in
prison. Yet the bond between the two
men is unmistakable.
They came across each other 18
months ago at an Advent carol service,
organised by Lord (Brian) Griffiths,
who had been, like Archer, a favourite
and close adviser of Margaret
Thatcher during her premiership. He
is also a family friend of Sutherland.
The latter had been asked to do a
reading at the event and his delivery,
and brief biography in the order of
service, caught Archer’s eye.
“In the general milling around at the
end,” Sutherland recalls, “I looked up
and Lord Archer was standing in front
of me, bold as day. He just launched
straight in: ‘I’m going to buy your
book tomorrow after which I’d very
much like to meet you.’ ”
He does a very good and fond
impression of the bossy, stentorian
tone that Archer often slips into when
he is sending himself up or teasing
those around him.
A few days later, they met in the
penthouse where we are now. Archer
laid out his request to Sutherland
regarding both Nothing Ventured, and
the seven books that would follow it.
“I said, ‘I want you to make sure that
everything I write is correct. I want
you to make sure that I don’t make
silly mistakes, but most of all I want
anecdotal stories.’ ”
After being medically retired fromthe police, there must have been a
part of Sutherland that wanted to say
no to such an unusual job offer, to
avoid reliving the stresses and
strains?
“I was intrigued,” he replies. “Yes,
it was all recent and so I was still
trying to work out what happens
next, how to do the next phase of my
life. I knew, for me, that involved
living at a very different pace and
much more gently, but I also knew it
involved writing for myself.”
Blue had been published the
previous year to both critical and
commercial success.
“I was a novice writer who got
lucky first time out, and I was being
afforded this remarkable opportunity
to look behind the curtain, to look at
the back of the tapestry, by serving
an apprenticeship with a master
storyteller. It is a remarkable thing.”
Archer waves away the
compliment. “I never saw it that way.
I was stealing everything I could
from him.”
They laugh. “The way it works,”
Sutherland explains, “is like this:
Jeffrey is very rude to me, and I
occasionally stand up for myself. And
don’t take any of it to heart.”
“Oh my God,” exclaims Archer, “I’d
stop if you did.”
“But there is something in this for
me,” protests his friend and
sometime plus-one at the cricket. “In
spite of everything, I do rather enjoy
his company. And police officers of
every generation like nothing more
than telling stories.”
How it actually works is that
Sutherland comments on drafts –
Archer typically goes through 12
before he is satisfied enough to send
a novel to his publishers – as well as
responding to requests for ideas and
stories from his policing days around
characters and plots.
“In that head of his,” says Archer,
“are a thousand pieces of magic.”
Nothing Ventured was already in its
first draft before the two had met. So
William Warwick (whom we first met
as a fictional character in The Clifton
Chronicles) shouldn’t be read as John
Sutherland? Archer smiles. “I made
lots of changes once I’d met Johnbecause there were nice little aspects
about John that I could steal and put
in. So, yes, William Warwick is him.”
When Sutherland was a raw
graduate recruit, his new colleagues
teased him about his privileged
background by referring to him as
Tarquin – “or Tarkers for short. That
went on for quite a while”. William
Warwick is called “the choirboy” in
the police canteen.
More widely, in the arc of the
story, there are parallels
aplenty.
“William Warwick was
always going to be a good
and decent man,” says
Archer, “and I have seen no
cynicism in John in the time
we’ve been working
together. All those years
going up through the ranks
and John hasn’t become
more cynical.”
This time it is
Sutherland’s turn to nod in
agreement.
“Being a policeman can
make you cynical about
human nature. You do see
the absolute worst of
everything – not many folk
ring the police to say they
are having a good day – but
my favourite word is hope. I
hang on to it quite
stubbornly.”
And that includes, he
says, a hope that his
beloved police force will
recover from its
mistreatment by Johnson’s
predecessor as prime
minister, Theresa May.
“She did more damage to
policing in this country than
any other individual in my
lifetime,” he says, “not just by cutting
the numbers, but by her impact on
morale, and the tone of her
relentlessly hostile rhetoric from the
very beginning of her tenure as
home secretary.”
“Wow,” exclaims Lord Archer, in
response to his friend’s words.
At 79, how confident is he about
seeing through this new series of
books? Though he is looking
robustly healthy enough, five years
ago he underwent surgery for
prostate cancer, and today has a
wound on his nose from the removal
of a melanoma.
“Are you saying that I may not live
that long?” he replies, typically
combative.
“I think one is very inspired by
David Attenborough to believe you
can go on. And if you die, so what.
You haven’t done it. I’ve said to
Our Lord, ‘it is going to take me
seven to eight years, so I’ll have to
get to 85’.”
That’s that settled, then. “And he’ll
have to live as well” – he gestures at
Sutherland – “to get William to
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