The grand old Duke of York

I don't see why Lord Mandelson or the Duke and Duchess of York and their daughters are to blame for being loyal to Epstein, after he got out of his very soft prison for having procured a 17 year-old girl for prostitution. 

Are we meant to abandon friends if they go to prison?

But Mandy is enormously to blame for lobbying for Prince Andrew to become the UK's special representative for trade and investment.

This was in place of the dear old Duke of Kent. Prince Andrew held the job, for which he was egregiously unfitted, and no doubt he and Epstein used it to their advantages, from 2001 until 2011. 

Only thanks to Wikileaks was Andrew sacked. 

Otherwise he might hold the job now.

His nemesis, Virginia Giuffre, is not a good posthumous witness, pitiful though she is. 

She seemed to Carolyn Andriano to be proud that she went to bed with Prince Andrew. 

She said nothing about being raped.

Carolyn Andriano's testimony put Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars.

Vitginia Giuffre groomed her 'friend' Carolyn, who was three years younger than her. 

Carolyn Andriano said that she considered that Virginia deserved no sympathy.

Both women's lives were ruined and (apparently) both committed suicide. 

So many people in this story killed themselves.

The scandal is like a novel. 

It's riveting, even for people like me who have no interest in tabloid sex stories, mostly because it concerns Epstein, but it is a distraction. 

We are being distracted from Epstein.

And in Whitney Webb's words Epstein was one of many Epsteins. 

He and the people he reported to are what is important, not the salacious gossip, fun though Procopius and the Duc de Saint-Simon are.

If Israel was behind Epstein this puts a different colour in very many things, including the Israeli actions in Gaza, including the possibility of an Israeli war with Iran this year. 

We are being distracted from a very powerful and intricate operation.