Spitzer is still a young man.

Question: What’s next for Eliot Spitzer?

Jeffrey Archer: Well he is a very able man. I don’t know him, of course. But you don’t become Governor of New York if you aren’t a competent and able person. I suspect he is a hugely talented man. And I expect he would return to young man too, that is a really significant thing, if he was at the end of his political career, would just be retirement and perhaps a book memos. But no, he is a young man.

Ask me that question in five years time, you may not need to ask it, because I suspect it will have been answered.

Question: Will people forgive Eliot Spitzer?

Jeffrey Archer: I am not saying he will come back in to politics, that will be difficult, but the American people are very forgiving people, they know that they have failings as well and they know they have made mistakes as well, and if he comes back doing another job and does it competently, I expect you will be respected for that.

Recorded on: March 15, 2008.