Keen On

At 85, the venerable Jeffrey Archer has lived through enough crises to stay calm and carry on whatever the stormy political weather. The best-selling author—who has sold 275 million books and, as a Conservative MP and party chairman, served Margaret Thatcher for 11 years—speaks with the authority of someone who witnessed the Iron Lady’s firm politics up close and personal. But Mrs Thatcher isn’t the only British grande dame who Archer now mourns. His latest William Warwick thriller End Game, set against the backdrop of the 2012 London Olympics, is the story of a plot against Queen Elizabeth II, the beloved monarch who, in contrast with Mrs T, unified Britain. And then there’s what Archer definitely calls his “final novel”—a World War II story to be published next year that he believes will be “bigger than Cain and Abel.” But he also weighs in on today’s political chaos in Britain and America: Trump’s absurd contradictions, the chilling specter of Farage and Robinson, Starmer’s political problems, and why Ma