Spiritual resurrection of politician who was buried by a lie under oath
A grandnephew of the press baron Lord Beaverbrook, he had led a privileged life. His promotion to John Major's cabinet led to speculation that he might be a future prime minister.
But The Guardian newspaper, and two subsequent World in Action documentaries, alleged that he had been a pimp for wealthy Arabs, been involved in murky financial deals, violated ministerial rules and had covered up his connections with prominent Saudis.
Although Aitken managed to see off the most serious of the allegations, he came unstuck over a relatively small matter. He had sworn on oath that his wife had paid a £900 bill for a stay in the Paris Ritz Hotel in 1992.
He had even persuaded his teenage daughter to sign a false statement claiming that she had been in Paris at the time.
This story was disproved and the libel case collapsed. Aitken was eventually convicted of perjury and sentenced to 18 months in prison. His wife divorced him and he lost his house (the former home of Winston Churchill's aide, Brendan Bracken, and Churchill's London political base during his 'wilderness' years).
But it was a happier, and changed, Jonathan Aitken who addressed over 100 people in Jurys Hotel in Dublin last Friday morning, almost a decade after his disgrace. Aitken was in town to launch the 'Alpha' course, a 10-week series of introductory talks on the Christian faith.
Aimed primarily at non-Christians and lapsed Christians, Alpha has the support of most Christian denominations and has been attended by over seven million participants worldwide.
Aitken describes Alpha as "a turning point in my own journey" and "a source of much friendship and spiritual growth ever since". At first, he was a reluctant convert. He was on the 'church-reticent' wing of the Anglican Church, loath to express his Christianity.
But gradually he came to discover, as he told his Dublin audience, that half-belief in God was "about as meaningful as being half pregnant". By June 8, 1999, the day he was sent to prison, Aitken could tell the media that he was "at peace." He now saw his prison sentence in spiritual terms, a necessary part of his purification.
Many a cynic, hearing Aitken describe all this, would say that after such an extraordinary fall from grace, 'finding God' is about the only sensible thing left to do. It could be a last resort to restore your good name and create new possibilities in public life.
It especially helps if your past misdemeanours were youthful. "When I was young and irresponsible," says George W Bush, "I was young and irresponsible." Finding God might even be a way of convincing yourself that you're not so bad.
But being 'born again' is riskier in Britain than it is in the US. Americans are open to religion and the transformation from a life of sin to one of grace 'I once was lost but now am found' is a frequent and well-loved theme.
In Britain, a country where the expression of religious faith is more likely to be greeted with the raised eyebrow or the curled lip, news of a change of heart could be seen as either fraudulent or feeble-minded.
Aitken's life today tells its own story. He is an accomplished writer on spiritual and biographical themes, and is in demand as a guest speaker worldwide.
His latest book, Porridge and Passion, describes his journey through three of her majesty's prisons.
Far from changing overnight, Aitken by his own account only gradually shed his reluctance to share his faith with other prisoners: "I had too much pride and too little patience to think of wasting my valuable time in such valleys of hopelessness.
"My mindset was still one of superiority towards my fellow prisoners. I did not particularly care what was happening in their lives, now or in the future."
BUT his friendship with a fellow-prisoner, an Irish Traveller called Paddy, changed all that. In gratitude for his help in reading and writing letters for fellow inmates, Paddy offered Aitken some porn magazines "a present from my library".
Aitken declined, causing initial offence: "I used to like the magazines you showed me, but these days I'm trying a different path in life. "
"So what kind of path would that be? " Paddy asked.
"Well, if you really want to know, it's the path of praying to Jesus and obeying his teachings," he replied. "It's a path that has changed my life.
As Aitken said: "A long silence spread over us in that cell. It was eventually broken by Paddy. In a slow voice he said the unexpected word: 'You know, I'd really like to try that path myself'."
Paddy became a recruiting sergeant for faith and had soon gathered a motley crew of hard chaws who grew into a committed prayer group.
Faith has its practical side as well. Today, Aitken is an enthusiastic advocate for change in the British prison system. He urges the tackling of prisoner illiteracy, the provision of productive work and training opportunities, and drug treatment for prisoners.
To these three he adds a fourth suggestion: provide opportunities for rehabilitation through spiritual change. He campaigned for Britain's first 'Innerchange' facility, recently opened in Dartmoor prison. This is a faith-based restorative justice course which has enjoyed major success in rehabilitating prisoners worldwide.
Reading about Aitken's new life and passions, it is hard not to conclude that he might be a better politician as a result of his fall than he was before it.
That possibility was closed off in 2004 when, despite support from Aitken's old Conservative constituency, the then Tory leader, Michael Howard, vetoed his chances of contesting the 2005 election.
Quite understandably, many people would consider an ex-convict, particularly a disgraced politician, as unsuitable for office thereafter. That idea is partially rooted in the notion that we must have standards in public life, and that the people who represent us must be seen to uphold them.
That is true, of course. But the unforgiving nature of our public culture can cause politicians to lead artificial lives failing to own up to petty offences and believing that the only sin is getting caught.
Hypocrisy gets elevated to the status of 'worst sin' and, once disgraced, you are disgraced forever. The media plays a complacent and destructive role because its practitioners are never held to account in the same way for their own sins.
In the end, we settle for a distorted view of human nature forgetting that the well-lived life will be full of failures and fresh starts. We lose our ability to believe that people can genuinely change and, as a result, we miss out on the contribution of those who do.
Aitken, with his enlightened views of penal reform born of inner transformation and personal experience, might be a case in point. But what he can no longer achieve in politics might yet be accomplished in other ways.
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