The Usual Suspects?

64 today and newly acquitted, his full name is Kevin Spacey Fowler. EastEnders beckons. It is the least that London owes him. I have not followed this story as closely as perhaps I should have done, something that I might also have said about that of Benjamin Mendy. But in neither case has the verdict come as any surprise to me. I am a very accomplished rat-smeller.

I am sure that I could stand no more than a few seconds in the company of Andrew Tate, but I cannot imagine that the United States would allow a white liberal American citizen to be treated as he has been, and I would not be at all surprised if little or nothing ended up coming of this. See Cardinal Pell, Julian Assange, Alex Salmond, Ched Evans, and the victims of Freya Heath, whose conviction was merely set aside on a procedural technicality.

This has nothing to do with liking anyone. The beatification will presumably be the occasion of a Papal Visit to Australia, but if possible I shall be in Rome for the canonisation of Cardinal Pell. To keep Assange’s work going, then I would die in his stead. While I am opposed to the marrow of my bones to the political cause to which Salmond has devoted his life, I expect that he and I would get on. But I doubt that Evans and I would find much to talk about. I know that Heath's victims and I would have more than enough for a very heated discussion indeed. And I have already said what I thought of Tate.

Moreover, since no charge or even arrest has followed the alleged allegation against Bishop Robert Byrne CO, then it is fair to assume that there has never been a Police investigation into His Lordship. He should now sue every media outlet that had suggested that there was one. An Oratorian does not take a vow of poverty, and the English Oratories have friends who could afford any lawyer in London. Despite the ostentatious traditionalism of certain aged Spectator Associate Editors and ageing Telegraph glamour boys, I alone have publicly defended Bishop Byrne. I have done so from the very start, and I shall do so to my last breath.

Furthermore, it is increasingly obvious that I have also been right all along about Prince Andrew, in whose defence I have been uniquely consistent. Prince Andrew has never run so much as his own bath. It was Peter Mandelson who stayed at Jeffrey Epstein's apartment while Epstein was an incarcerated sex offender and Mandelson was a Cabinet Minister. First Secretary of State, in fact. Deputy Prime Minister in all but name.

This post is this site's twenty-ninth mention of the connection between Mandelson and Epstein, with the first having been as long ago as 16th August 2019, and with most of these posts having been substantially the same as comments on Guido Fawkes. Yet no one seems to think that this is news, even though Mandelson was the star turn at a major right-wing Labour fundraiser last month, and he would undoubtedly be in any Cabinet of Starmer's, probably as Deputy Prime Minister in name, and certainly as such in practice.

But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.