In America, important men don’t seem to suffer too much over their links to the late Jeffrey Epstein.Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick and Paolo Zampolli, among others, might regret their past friendships with the world’s most famous sex criminal. Certainly, they resent having to face pesky questions about it.But the story just rumbles on, darkly, a source of endless intrigue and gossip and conspiracy theories – sustained as it is by the occasional publicity jolt, such as last week when First Lady Melania Trump, apparently without the knowledge of her husband, decided to give a big public statement denying that she, er, something something Jeffrey Epstein.

Rich and powerful Britons, however, keep losing their jobs and reputations thanks to the Epstein monster. Ghislaine Maxwell is still in prison in America. Andrew, the former prince, lost his titles and is now pretty much in hiding. And Peter Mandelson was removed as Britain’s ambassador to Washington and resigned from the House of Lords.Last night, Keir Starmer fired Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office’s Permanent Secretary, after the Guardian revealed that Mandelson had failed his security vetting – but the Foreign Office sent him........

© The Spectator