Mandy, Not Andy

Prince Andrew this, Prince Andrew that, Prince Andrew the other. The story here is Peter Mandelson. Unlike the undisputed facts in that link, Prince Andrew strenuously denies having had sex with a very obviously post-pubescent person who had been above the age of consent both in London, where it was and is 16, and in New York, where it was and is 17.

Notice that rape and sexual assault have had to be alleged, and even then only as a civil matter, since the United States still has a proper criminal burden of proof. Unlike here, where juries are now directed to "disregard" the concept of conviction beyond reasonable doubt.

There is no comparison with O.J. Simpson, who had already been acquitted of murder before a civil action for wrongful death was brought against him. Since it alleges what is in fact a criminal offence, then this civil suit ought to be dismissed at least until that allegation had been tested in a criminal court.

In the meantime, Prince Andrew has been libelled in England while living in England, so he should sue in England everyone who had called him a paedophile. He is being sued for having had sex with a very obviously post-pubescent person who had been above the age of consent, and he strenuously denies even that.

Moreover, he has never had any power in his life. The story here is Peter Mandelson. And thus also Keir Starmer, and Gordon Brown, and Sir Tony Blair, Knight of the Gutter. If the monarchy, as such, comes into this business at all, then it is as the point of the conferral of the Order of the Garter, which is entirely in the gift of the monarch, on one of the most abject political dependants of a man who telephoned Jeffrey Epstein to arrange a donation when Epstein was already a convicted and incarcerated child sexual abuser. That man remains a member both of the Privy Council and of the House of Lords, where he continues to receive the Labour whip.

Down the corridor, the whip no longer extends to Jeremy Corbyn, whose supposedly anti-Semitic but in fact accurately Yiddish pronunciation of Epstein's name was once the actual news as part of the most hysterical hoax in modern British political history. Come to that, Robert Maxwell probably also held Labour Party membership until the day he died. Right up until then, the party was always more than happy to take the money of that obviously dodgy character.