23rd November, 2005

CAROLE ADAMS

Pride and Perjury

Jonathan Aitken

Published by Continuum Books, 2004

ISBN 0 8264 7274 5

In a word: Intriguing

"This is the story of two journeys - a very public fall from grace, and at the same time, a very personal search for the reality of Christianity."

It’s the story of a man at the height of his career, newly promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the British Cabinet, even tipped as a possible successor to the Prime Minister John Major. But it’s also the story of a man seeking a real relationship with God. This is the story of two journeys - a very public fall from grace, and at the same time, a very personal search for the reality of Christianity.

Jonathan Aitken's tale begins with him experiencing power and influence at the forefront of British politics, while at the same time realising that he was feeling an inner “emptiness and lack of fulfilment within”.

It was at this time that Aitken’s fall from grace began. Facing numerous accusations - including that he violated ministerial rules by allowing an Arab businessman to pay for his stay in a Paris hotel - Aitken was suddenly front page news in the British press. His family disintegrating around him, he resigned from the Government to defend himself and sued The Guardian newspaper and Granada Television for libel.

The book records how, in the middle of all this, God was still calling Aitken to Him. Aitken tells of how he took part in two interdenominational parliamentary prayer retreats, found a Jesuit priest to be his mentor and renewed his relationship with Charles Colson and admits that in spite of all that he was learning about God and himself, he was still trying to live in two worlds and keep them separate - “a contradiction between my self-interested head and my God-interested heart”.

It was, according to Aitken, his own pride that lead to his downfall - instead of just denying the claims made against him, he had insisted on the libel suit even though he knew he had lied about a hotel bill - a lie which, when is was uncovered during the libel case, led to the case collapsing and him being imprisoned on counts of perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice as well as, according to Aitken, the collapse of his marriage.

In his estimation, he says, he believed that given the many false assertions made against him, what was one small false claim on his part? Aitken says that because of his pride and selfishness, he became obsessed with winning the case at all costs. He does not justify what he did, just explains why he did it and what he was thinking and feeling at the time.

This is a challenging story about the difficulty of living out Christian faith is spite of circumstances, and the ways in which we try to have it both ways - God's way and our own way. It was only when Aitken reached the depths of depression, and he realised his need for true repentance in many areas of his life that he really began to feel at peace with himself and God.

He reached out to other Christians for support and began sharing his life and struggles with them, attended an Alpha course and was baptised in the power of the Holy Spirit. As the book ends (stay turned for the sequel), Aitken is divorced, bankrupt and about to be imprisoned, but is at peace with God, himself and his family, and is looking forward to studying the full Oxford University honours degree course in theology. An intriguing story worth concentrated reading!

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