(1940– )
a former British Conservative Member of Parliament and a writer of popular novels about money, sex and power which made him a millionaire. In 1985 he became Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, an important political position, but he had to leave the job in 1986 after a scandal reported in News of the World . He became a life peer in 1992, because of his loyalty to the Conservative party. He has often been in the newspapers and in court because he has been involved in various immoral or illegal political and financial affairs. In 1992 there was a dispute when he bought and sold shares in a TV company of which his wife was a director. He was in prison from 2001 to 2003 for perjury (= telling lies to a court of law).