The grand old Duke of York

I don't see why Lord Mandelson or the Duke of York’s family are to blame for being loyal to Epstein after he got out of his very easy gaol (for having consensual sex with a 17 year-old girl) 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. Andrew held the job for which he was egregiously unfitted, and no doubt took advantages from it, from 2001 until 2011. 

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

She was proud to tell her friend Carolyn Andriano that she went to bed with Prince Andrew.

And she groomed Carolyn, who was three years younger than her.

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

So many people in this story killed themselves, apparently.

The scandal is riveting but its 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.