Berkeley then still a Conservative just about had lost his Lancaster seat in 1966

Berkeley, then still a Conservative, just about, had lost his Lancaster seat in 1966. In the seven years in which he had sat in the House, he had done great things. He had played a leading part in reforming the law on homosexuality He had even reformed the Tory party. He had persuaded Lord Home to adopt that system of electing the leader which, with variations, lasted till Mr William Hague brought in the party members.

Though he was to die a somewhat sad, disappointed and footloose figure, he remains one of the outstanding backbenchers of the second half of the last century.When he asked me about Archer, Berkeley was chairman of the United Nations Association, Archer his assistant I said I had indeed heard of him. He was most famous for being the fund-raiser who had organised the Beatles’ visit to Oxford. For some reason I also had at the back of my mind the story that there was something fishy about his place in the Oxford University athletics team. It turned out that, even though he had been merely attached to Brasenose College rather than a full member of the university – the source of the original suspicion – the athletics club had been fully entitled to accept him. The real question, which was not to emerge clearly until later, with Mr Michael Crick’s masterly biography, was about how he had managed to insinuate himself into the university’s department of education at all.But, I said to Berkeley, I had never had the pleasure of meeting him That was odd, Berkeley replied.

In his expenses form Archer claimed to have bought me lunch only a few weeks before. I was puzzled and slightly perturbed, for it is not pleasant to figure in the expenses claim of someone you have never set eyes on in your life.A few weeks later Berkeley produced for my inspection an incriminating dossier of Archer’s delinquencies. The curious thing was the smallness of the sums involved, hardly worth a false claim. In those days, I should explain, it was possible to entertain someone to lunch in Soho or the West End for £10 or so. Indeed, in 1960 it was possible to have the set lunch in the Caprice, a restaurant to figure largely in Lord Archer’s later adventures, for 7s.6d or 37.5p in today’s money.