It’s a strange thing hearing men on the news talk about the Epstein files. They are quietly sombre, shaking their heads with mutterings of “oh yes, awful, isn’t it?” Then, in the very next breath, they’re all clinical professionalism, holding forth about the wider political implications and how it has put Keir Starmer in a perilous position.
Not so the women in my life – or even the female broadcasters, for that matter. They are aghast, astounded, horrified. Most of all, they are furious. Incandescent with rage. For them, the victim of this unfurling horror story isn’t Starmer. And it’s certainly not the monarchy, who may now purport to be standing with the victims, but were glacially slow to say or do anything previously – even after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s car-crash interview with Emily Maitlis sent shockwaves around the world in 2019.
