'WOE unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness."

That quotation from St Matthew's gospel came to mind as I listened to television reporters' outrage that Jeffrey Archer is writing a book about his prison experiences. The reporters say he's only doing it for the money. Well, what are TV reporters working for except money? They say they know that the fact Archer is writing a book will attract a great deal of publicity for him. What they neglect to say is that it is they themselves who are giving him this publicity.

I don't like much about Archer. He is a liar and a twister. That's why he's in jail. Personally, I find his novels unreadable. But just because a man has been convicted of a crime (and he is at this moment paying the penalty) doesn't mean that he forfeits all right to freedom of expression. Other people, sainted and adored by the media, wrote books in prison: the former terrorist Nelson Mandela, for example. Oscar Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol in prison. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress in prison. No, the real reason why the chattering classes in the media hate Archer is out of envy and because he's a Tory.

Changing the subject only slightly, I wonder if John Major will write a book about his torrid love affair with Edwina Curry? If he does, what might it be like?

"It was one particularly grey evening and I was not inconsiderably bored. Norma refused to play knock-out whist with me because she said I positively reeked of Horlicks. I remarked to the effect that if that was how she felt then I was going out to the off-licence for a bottle of diet lemonade and a packet of crisps.

"Imagine my surprise when, emerging from the said off-licence, I saw my parliamentary colleague Mrs Curry. I greeted her cheerily and remarked that I thought it had begun to drizzle and that, indeed, the weather was altogether inclement for the time of year. She seemed not a little amused by my witty banter and suggested that we adjourn to her place and continue our fascinating conversation there.

"And that is how it all began. Well do I remember those heady days when we would sit in front of Edwina's two-bar electric fire. She would look up adoringly into my eyes and say, 'Dear John, did you know that nearly all the eggs in this great country of ours are contaminated with salmonella?'

"I think that is what most attracted me to her: the way that she could effortlessly instigate scintillating conversation of that sort. Soon we began to embark on all kinds of exciting excursions. Once we went to the hardware shop for a packet of three-inch screws and, having purchased them, I remarked that they were much more expensive than they were when I was a boy.

"Well, of course, a relationship of this intensity couldn't last. So the day came when I had to say - over a stolen evening when we ate cream crackers and drank Ovaltine - a not inconsiderably protracted farewell."

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain of the Stock Exchange