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A quick update on Keir Starmer’s administration of “countrywide revival”: following dismissing his deputy and housing minister due to negligence to pay mandatory stamp duty, Starmer has also dismissed his US ambassador over strong ties with an identified child trafficker.

At the same time, a growing group of people believe the answer lies with Andy Burnham taking over, implying he could run in a constituency that has just recently opened up after the former Labour MP was barred by Labour after being found to have written texts hoping constituents would soon be dead/“mown down”, and is now apparently “on sick leave”.

Adding to this, US officials are coming. President Donald Trump touches down in the UK tonight just before of what promises to be the most hideously ill-starred formal meal since the nausea episode in Triangle of Sadness. It’s hard to believe the nation could feel any more refreshed.

The Mandelson Emails

It’s been a few days after Peter Mandelson’s messages to the financier were made public, and as I reflect about them, the stronger I come back to one of the more obscure comments. Composing with clear distress just before of Epstein’s imprisonment in 2008, Mandelson writes to him: “This wouldn’t happen in Britain.”

Maybe that was accurate, intentionally or not. The UK is extremely skilled at a kind of systemic looking away. Maybe he was – knowingly or not – describing a dark trait about the nation that pious old Keir Starmer would surely be hugely affronted to be caught up in. But, the prime minister is caught up in it – actually, he is the heart of it. He is the one who ignored it.

An Administration Under Fire

It’s difficult not to sense there is a decaying quality and defeated about a government whose head would select someone he knew had been deeply connected to Epstein, who everyone by that point knew was – apologies for repeating the words – a paedophile sex trafficker. Ties to him was by then known to be such a horror show that the Queen Elizabeth had to remove Prince Andrew for it.

And there is Starmer’s shocking disinterest even as the facts mounted, up until the bitter end, with the Prime Minister’s office dithering for a staggeringly long period about a set of highly career-ending communications, while Starmer fannied about defending his ally at the dispatch box.

From Opposition to Embarrassment

This was the other podium to the one at which Sir Keir plied his self-righteous trade in the opposition. There’s an old internet saying that declares that if you correct someone for their spelling or grammar, you will inevitably end up making your own mistake while in the act.

The Prime Minister spent his years in the opposition telling off the Tories at each opportunity, rather than – for instance – coming up with a innovative and clear plan for growth. As expected, we now seem to be strapped in observing him and his administration warrant a regular telling-off, as offences and immoralities mount up. How come this repeatedly occurs to him, etc?

Unanswered Questions

As for the financier, we know that at the time he was corresponding to him urging him to fight for early release, law enforcement in Palm Beach, Florida had identified dozens of young women who the “businessman” had sexually abused. Yet for all the long period of dark and grotesque revelations, it still feels as though we know remarkably little about him.

What was his story, this mysterious paedo Gatsby, and how did all his money originate?

Shortly after his death, a publication ran a fascinating story in which actual hedge-funders expressed clear confusion over how he made his money, since not one had ever had any dealings with him.

According to a prominent fund manager, an expert, put it: “I went to my institutional brokers, at their trading desks and asked if they had ever traded with him. I repeated this a few times up to the date when he was arrested. None professional trading team, major or minor, had ever traded with his company.”

He had said to a reporter: “He reminds me who is similar of Madoff that nobody trades with.” Another hedgie remarked: “It’s hard to make a vast fortune discreetly.” But Epstein had made no noise at all in the investment community. They could barely find a single client. The widespread belief was that the “investment fund” was simply a front for a extortion operation.

Ghost at the Feast

Maybe most amazing, truly, is the fact that his shadow will be a presence at the feast tomorrow night for several guest, as Trump continues to downplay his lengthy and intimate association with exactly the kind of criminal his Maga followers are certain controls the world.

He is a figure who really does fit the very template of their darkest beliefs – wealthy and powerful, involved in the trafficking of young people, linked in a web of many of the most powerful people in the world. These are all the kind of stuff they’ve been discussing for years – yet who should keep rearing his head in the story, but their own beloved president.

Isn’t it intriguing how many of them currently just can’t bring themselves to believe it? A topic to discuss over the first course tomorrow night at Windsor Castle, perhaps, as long as everyone can keep their food down.