The country with the smallest Epstein exposure has done more to process it than the country with the largest. That asymmetry should be central to how this story is being told, and almost nowhere is it being told that way.
A royal (The King's brother), stripped of titles, military ranks, royal duties and the use of his styles, still under active investigation. A senior diplomat removed from Washington and now under Foreign Affairs Committee scrutiny. A Prime Minister facing the Commons today over the vetting failures, with civil service witnesses on the record and the Cabinet Secretary's evidence already given. None of this is full accountability. All of it is more than has happened anywhere else.
In the United States, where the network was based, where the crimes occurred, where the man named 38,000 times in the files now sits in the Oval Office, almost nothing has happened. No senior figures stripped of position. No equivalent Congressional inquiries. No serving officials facing scrutiny.
Britain's response, however incomplete and however much it remains a story of power closing ranks, is functionally the only response anywhere. The system protecting itself in Westminster looks very different from the system not even being asked the question in Washington. Both are failures. They are different failures, and the difference matters.
Which raises the question. If the strongest accountability mechanism on earth, applied to the Epstein affair, is the British scrutiny architecture as currently constituted, the architecture is the problem. Not because it has gone too far. Because it has not gone nearly far enough — and there is nothing better anywhere to compare it to.
Left-leaning American investigative journalists and commentators (there are several on this platform) demanding full release of the Epstein files and a handing out of justice to Trump and his cronies are incensed that the British dare send their Monarch over to shake hands with Trump and thus lend him some kind of Kingly seal of approval. Especially given his families direct involvement with Epstein.
Given everything Trump has done, what he stands for and what we all know he has very likely done, it disgusts them that Charles sees fit to represent the British in this way and pander to Trump. They are right.
I am embarrassed, disgusted and outraged by it. I hope the entire British public are cringing uncomfortably at this visit.
We should not be trying to ‘smooth things over’ and maintain diplomatic ties with such a person or his supporters.
I don’t understand why so few of the British press are calling this out. Rather they (especially the BBC - which shouldn’t surprise anyone of course) are swooning over the palaces’ amazing speech-writing and Charles ability to crack a joke. It honestly makes you sick.
Hats off to the American substackers for calling this out.
I like your comment , Paul. Of course I am aware of and entirely share the moral outrage about much that passes for government in the United States but I see little point in shouting that the response lacks morality. The truth as I see it is that the American system of justice permits the view that certain people can be above the law and can continue to flout it at enormous human cost with no accountabolity. Perhaps the plan is to confront Trump and co once he is no longer president but justice deferred is justice denied. I think there is no equivalence with Starmer's actions as regards Mandelson. Everÿone has know for two decades that Mandelson was flawed. No one denied that. Everyone also knew that he was perhaps uniquely gifted for this task. Should we have learned nothing about how Trump would not tolerate the unimpeachable Kim Darrovh in the role of our man in Washington. There is no equivalence whatever between the difficult decision Starmer had and the unspeakable "free pass" given to Trump.
The country with the smallest Epstein exposure has done more to process it than the country with the largest. That asymmetry should be central to how this story is being told, and almost nowhere is it being told that way.
A royal (The King's brother), stripped of titles, military ranks, royal duties and the use of his styles, still under active investigation. A senior diplomat removed from Washington and now under Foreign Affairs Committee scrutiny. A Prime Minister facing the Commons today over the vetting failures, with civil service witnesses on the record and the Cabinet Secretary's evidence already given. None of this is full accountability. All of it is more than has happened anywhere else.
In the United States, where the network was based, where the crimes occurred, where the man named 38,000 times in the files now sits in the Oval Office, almost nothing has happened. No senior figures stripped of position. No equivalent Congressional inquiries. No serving officials facing scrutiny.
Britain's response, however incomplete and however much it remains a story of power closing ranks, is functionally the only response anywhere. The system protecting itself in Westminster looks very different from the system not even being asked the question in Washington. Both are failures. They are different failures, and the difference matters.
Which raises the question. If the strongest accountability mechanism on earth, applied to the Epstein affair, is the British scrutiny architecture as currently constituted, the architecture is the problem. Not because it has gone too far. Because it has not gone nearly far enough — and there is nothing better anywhere to compare it to.
Left-leaning American investigative journalists and commentators (there are several on this platform) demanding full release of the Epstein files and a handing out of justice to Trump and his cronies are incensed that the British dare send their Monarch over to shake hands with Trump and thus lend him some kind of Kingly seal of approval. Especially given his families direct involvement with Epstein.
Given everything Trump has done, what he stands for and what we all know he has very likely done, it disgusts them that Charles sees fit to represent the British in this way and pander to Trump. They are right.
I am embarrassed, disgusted and outraged by it. I hope the entire British public are cringing uncomfortably at this visit.
We should not be trying to ‘smooth things over’ and maintain diplomatic ties with such a person or his supporters.
I don’t understand why so few of the British press are calling this out. Rather they (especially the BBC - which shouldn’t surprise anyone of course) are swooning over the palaces’ amazing speech-writing and Charles ability to crack a joke. It honestly makes you sick.
Hats off to the American substackers for calling this out.
I like your comment , Paul. Of course I am aware of and entirely share the moral outrage about much that passes for government in the United States but I see little point in shouting that the response lacks morality. The truth as I see it is that the American system of justice permits the view that certain people can be above the law and can continue to flout it at enormous human cost with no accountabolity. Perhaps the plan is to confront Trump and co once he is no longer president but justice deferred is justice denied. I think there is no equivalence with Starmer's actions as regards Mandelson. Everÿone has know for two decades that Mandelson was flawed. No one denied that. Everyone also knew that he was perhaps uniquely gifted for this task. Should we have learned nothing about how Trump would not tolerate the unimpeachable Kim Darrovh in the role of our man in Washington. There is no equivalence whatever between the difficult decision Starmer had and the unspeakable "free pass" given to Trump.