(posted 7953 days ago)Evening Standard
Aitken turns porridge into £5,000
by Valentine LowThe disgraced former Tory Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken is a man whose chief claim to fame these days is the lies he has told. One might have thought, therefore, that no one in their right mind would pay the slightest heed to anything he has to say.
But apparently not. Not only are there people out there who are only too willing to listen to the wit and wisdom of one of the country's most high-profile perjurers, they are even prepared to pay several thousand pounds a time for the privilege.
Mr Aitken, 59, has signed on with the top after-dinner speaking agency, Speakers UK, and is charging up to £5,000 a go.
The topics offered by Mr Aitken - who was jailed for 18 months for perjury after his libel case against the Guardian and Granada TV's World In Action collapsed in 1997 - range from "Power to porridge: a journey through prison" to "The lighter side of politics and prison".
"Jonathan's PA approached us a couple of months ago, and shortly after that he joined us exclusively," a spokesman for Speakers UK told the Daily Telegraph. "We were delighted to accept him, as he's a posh version of Nick Leeson, who's one of our most popular clients.
"Of course, to start with he'll get far less than Leeson, as we're just trying to establish him at present."
It is not the first time that Mr Aitken, who was released at the beginning of 2000 after serving seven months, has turned his previous misfortunes into hard cash. After he came out he wrote a book about his experiences called Pride And Perjury, although the £65,000 he earned from the serialisation in the Sunday Times was used to pay off his creditors, who include The Guardian, Granada Television and the Inland Revenue.
Now a theology student at Oxford, Mr Aitken is also writing another book about his friend Charles Colson, the Nixon aide who was jailed for his part in Watergate and went on to set himself up as an evangelist and prison reformer.
Mr Aitken's love life has also improved. For four months he has been stepping out with Elizabeth Harris, the former wife of actors Rex Harrison and Richard Harris as well as his own cousin Peter Aitken.
He divides his time between a one-bedroom flat in the town and a basement flat belonging to his actress sister Maria in Kennington.
He has, however, a long way to go before he is in the top rank of after-dinner speakers. Sven-Goran Eriksson gets up to £25,000 a session, while John Cleese is said to earn up to £65,000.
© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 09 July 2002