Darth Archer returns

Good on him. Lord Archer is a keen soccer fan. He will light a fire under the knobhead "Tony's Cronies" that fill the House of Lords these days.

Jeffrey Archer has made a bid to rejoin the Conservative Party, but his application is yet to be processed, party officials have said. Reports the disgraced peer had rejoined the party in Vauxhall, south London, were denied, but officials then said he had asked to rejoin in Cambridgeshire. Lord Archer has homes in both south London and Cambridgeshire. The peer was expelled by the Tories in 2000 because of his lies in a libel case and was jailed for perjury. Aides of leadership candidate David Cameron have said he believes there should be no question of Lord Archer retaking the Conservative whip. The confusion comes after a report in the Times, based on an interview in an Australian newspaper, suggested the author recently rejoined the local buttociation in south London, after serving a five-year expulsion. A party statement initially said it had no record of Lord Archer rejoining the Conservative Party and that the Vauxhall buttociation had no record of any application. But a party spokesman then said: "We understand he has approached party officials in Cambridgeshire about joining. "But his application has not been processed at this point." Lord Archer returned to the upper chamber in May for the first time since his release from jail in 2003 and sits as a "non-affiliated" peer. But he is also reported to have spoken to the Tory's chief whip in the Lords about the possibility of rejoining the Conservative benches. David Davis has made no comment. Lord Archer nearly lost his seat in 2003 when the government planned to extend rules banning MPs who have served more than two years' imprisonment to peers. But the plans were shelved at the last minute. In February, the then Conservative co-chairman Liam Fox said the party would not be averse to any application by the disgraced peer to rejoin its ranks. He said: "I'm sure that in line with people having served their sentence and having done some reparations for what they did wrong, we would look at that sympathetically." 'Watching sport' The former deputy party chairman has raised millions of pounds for the Conservative Party and stood as its candidate for the high profile job as London mayor. But he was forced to withdraw from the race in 2000 when it emerged he had lied in his 1986 High Court libel trial against the Daily Star. He had wrongly won £500,000 in damages from the newspaper. The interview in The Australian newspaper also marked the publication of his first novel since leaving prison, entitled False Impressions. He told the newspaper: "In the past I wanted to be chairman of the Conservative Party and I wanted to be Mayor of London. "But at the moment my life consists of writing and charity auctions and watching sport." His other ambitions were of a sporting nature, he said, and included wanting to be able to run a mile in eight minutes. A spokesman for leadership hopeful David Cameron said it would be up to the next party leader to decide whether Lord Archer can sit as a Tory in the House of Lords. He went on to say that David Cameron's view was that Lord Archer's days as an active politician are over and there is no question of him re-taking the Conservative whip. -- Every single SU and FCUM member is now an enemy of Manchester United, and the Conservative Party. Do what must be done. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy.