Not Only Fans

Free to wander the streets at will while charged with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group? You do not have to like Andrew and Tristan Tate, or even to take them seriously, to be able to see when prosecuting authorities have realised that they have no case and are now just trying to work out how to save face. What next? Taking two months to make an arrest after a woman had complained that a man had breached her restraining order against him, and then releasing him on unconditional bail to go about his, in the locality, fairly high profile political activism for at least another six months?

I told you so. Over, and over, and over again, I told you so. 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 have said from the very start that 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 thirtieth 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 is the star turn at major right-wing Labour fundraising events, and even though he would undoubtedly be in any Cabinet of Keir Starmer's, probably as Deputy Prime Minister in name, and certainly as such in practice. Even from his cell, Epstein was still making donations to "Petie".

Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions when the decision was made not to prosecute Jimmy Savile. In the words of Doughty Street Chambers, on its page about Starmer, now amusingly removed from public view: "He was Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008-2013. As DPP, Keir was responsible for all criminal prosecutions in England and Wales." Therefore, Starmer would have been responsible for the decision not to charge Savile even if he had never set eyes on the file.

But that is in any case inconceivable. We are talking about Jimmy Savile here. That Starmer took the decision not to charge Savile has been repeated all over the place, far beyond parliamentary privilege. Starmer has yet to sue anyone for having made it. Starmer's "experience" as DPP is held up by his supporters as his qualification to be Prime Minister. Yet now they insist that it was a purely titular headship such as might have been given on an unpaid basis to a minor member of the Royal Family. Or, in his heyday, to Jimmy Savile.

Due to Savile's fame and connections, of course that decision was not made by anyone other than Starmer, just as of course he was sly enough not to have left a paper trail. Why did Starmer let Savile off? Why is Starmer so dependent on Epstein's closest associate in Britain, indeed one of Epstein's closest associates in the world? What sort of person therefore wants Starmer to become Prime Minister? 

Thankfully, Rishi Sunak has delivered a body blow to the Green-aligned SNP in the North East of Scotland. The Liberal Democrats are roaring back in the West County. Not even Keir Mather expects Labour to hold Selby and Ainsty. Net Zero is Starmer's approval rating here on the Red Wall. ULEZ is dooming Labour in Metroland, with the suspicion of similar things poised to do it no end of damage in suburbia generally. Interest rates and inflation may be a lot lower this time next year than they were now.

By then, the few Labour MPs who had withdrawn their signatures from the Stop the War Coalition's statement on Ukraine will have been shown to have been right the first time; indeed, they already have been. Corbyn is going to hold Islington North, if he had not decided to become Mayor of London instead, or even if he had. Diane Abbott is going to hold Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Emma Dent Coad is going to win back Kensington. And so on.

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 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.