Right, so Prince Andrew's out, stripped, erased,
repackaged now as Andrew Mountbatten -Windsor,
the royal family finally admitting what everyone
else already knew, he was a liability they couldn't
spin their way out of anymore. So the King swung
the axe, all titles gone, royal lodge soon to
follow. And yet Peter Mandelson, who spent his
own holidays in Geoffrey Epstein's company and
wrote My Best Pal in the Man's Birthday Book,
still floats serenely through Westminster as
Lord Mandelson. That's the state of British morality
in one picture, isn't it? A monarch of all people
playing moral referee while an elected government
hides behind procedure to avoid doing likewise
with Mandelson. Andrew loses his title to save
the brand, Mandelson keeps his, but why? One
rule for Royals, none for Stammer's sort, and
presumably Stammer's fine with all of this in
spite of everything. Right, so when even the
monarchy is more willing to cut loose its own
than the government you know the country has
rotted from the inside out. On the 30th of October
Charles signed off on the removal of every title
and honour but still tied Prince Andrew to the
institution that raised him. Buckingham Palace
confirmed that he would now be known as Andrew
Mountbatten Windsor. The phrase carried quiet
violence, his style, his Royal Highness was gone,
his right to call himself Prince was gone, the
Duke of York, the Earl of Inverness, the Baron
Killy Lee all set aside, pending the legal wash
through that will eventually return them to the
Crown. The same week, Palisades briefed that
he would vacate Royal Lodge in Windsor and move
into private accommodation, so he's getting handed
a house then presumably. For a family that measures
itself in continuity, That was a decapitation.
No one pretended it was an act of morality in
the biblical sense. It was self -preservation.
The firm was circling the wagons. The monarchy's
entire business model is moral appearance. When
that collapses the brand dies, and they know
that. After years of pressure the BBC interviewed
the Virginia Jaffray lawsuit, the settlement
that cost roughly 12 million pounds. Charles
finally did what the late Queen had only half
done. Back in 2022 she had stripped Andrew of
his military titles and royal patronages but
left him cloaked in his birthright. But that
was never enough to appease the public who were
sickened, especially as this case has never gone
away, so Charles has finished the job. For the
first time since the abdication of 1936 a senior
royal was formerly unroyaled while still alive
and in line to the throne. That's the constitutional
part. The political part is what it says about
Britain because at the same time as the monarchy
was amputating a limb to save itself, the government,
the one that likes to talk about integrity and
restoring faith in public life, was still sheltering
a man whose own documented friendship with Jeffrey
Epstein stretches back decades. Peter Mandelson
has never been accused of sexual offences, that
needs saying plainly, but he was deep inside
Epstein's circle. His name appeared at least
ten times at Epstein's 2004 address book. He
stayed at Epstein's homes in New York and in
the Caribbean. He took two flights, paid for
by Epstein in 2003, neither of which he declared.
He wrote My Best Pal in Epstein's birthday book,
his own handwriting, confirmed in photographs
published and reported on back in July and again
as recently as September. When the story resurfaced
again this autumn, the media quoted Mandelson
expressing deep regret for the association. He
admitted that he had maintained contact even
after Epstein's first conviction in 2008. Those
are facts on record, not gossip. There are also
facts that have already cost him abroad in the
United States after the renewed disclosures.
Mandelson lost his ambassadorial role and his
consulting advisory firm began removing him from
its board and shareholding following the disclosures.
Yet in Britain he remains Lord Mandelson, still
a life peer, still moving in and out of the Prime
Minister's orbit. So we have a contradiction
here that surely needs resolving then, don't
we? One man born to privilege loses everything
because his presence endangers an unelected monarchy's
legitimacy, another man elevated by political
patronage keeps everything, keeps every privilege
he's ever been given, including a lifetime seat
in the legislature because his presence strengthens
an elected government's connections to money
and media. The difference isn't evidence, it's
utility. Andrew had become useless, Mandelson
is still useful. What's useful about him, then,
Damo? Well, it's his network, isn't it? It's
the donor introductions, it's the city credibility,
the whisper that keeps corporate Britain calm
about a Labour government. Keir Starmer didn't
inherit Mandelson by accident. He recruited him.
He dug him up from his crypt. When Starmer began
the project of sanitising Labour for boardrooms
and newspapers, it was Mandelson who helped rebuild
the bridge. He is, to this Labour government,
what Alistair Campbell was to Blair's, but without
the daylight. So when Mandelson's Epstein connection
came back into the headlines, Starmer didn't
distance himself. Starmer at the time told reporters
there was no reason Mandelson should step aside
as the UK's ambassador to the US. And then of
course he went. The monarchy acts on optics.
The government hides behind procedure. Charles
doesn't need Parliament to remove a title. Starmer
would need Parliament to strip a peerage. But
legality isn't the issue. Will is. The monarchy
acts on optics. The government hides behind procedure.
Charles doesn't need parliament to remove a title.
Starmer would need parliament to strip a peerage.
But legality isn't the issue. Will is. The Crown
used its discretion because its image was in
danger. The government refuses to use its because
its power still evidently depends on the man
at the centre of the scandal. Why else keep themselves
tied to him and be tarnished by that? The legal
distinction is clear enough though. A royal title
exists at the pleasure of the sovereign. A life
peerage exists under statute. The House of Lords
Reform Act of 2014 allows for resignation, suspension
for non -attendance or removal following criminal
conviction. There's nothing preventing a Prime
Minister from sponsoring an amendment or initiating
an investigation under those rules. It just hasn't
happened. Not for Mandelson, not for anyone of
comparable standing. The inertia is the point.
What this shows is that the monarchy's legitimacy
is theatrical but disciplined. while the political
class's legitimacy is transactional and self
-protective. When the palace is cornered it stages
accountability. When Westminster is cornered
it defers to process that doesn't get initiated
that they are never pressed on. Look at the timing.
In October the headlines were about Andrew's
titles. In July they were about Mandelson's friendship
with Epstein. Both institutions face reputational
damage within weeks of each other. One chose
to cauterize, the other chose to pretend because
Britain still runs on hierarchy. The Crown is
supposed to be untouchable, yet it fears public
disgust. The Lords are supposed to be accountable,
yet they fear nothing. The paradox is that the
monarchy has to look clean to survive, while
the political establishment can survive precisely
because it looks like nothing at all. A fog of
titles, honours and former ministers moving through
think tanks and banks. Andrew's disgrace threatened
the royal brand, so he's erased. Mandelson's
disgrace evidently threatens the Supply lines
so he's protected. This isn't new, it's just
visible now. For centuries the British system
has used titles not as honours but as insulation.
They were created to mark distance between ruler
and rule then repurposed to launder proximity
to power. When the monarchy became ceremonial
the periods became functional, a holding pen
for the political class once they left office,
a safe house for when scandals hit. In that sense
Andrew and Mandelson occupy the same building
just on different floors. The crown threw one
out of the window to keep its facade clean. The
government quietly reinforced the roof to keep
the other out of sight. And it matches beyond
symbolism because the question isn't just who
keeps their title, it's who keeps their access.
A royal title gets you ceremony. A peerage gets
you power. Mandelson's seat in the Lords gives
him votes on legislation, privileged access to
ministers and a lifetime platform in national
debate. Andrew's title gave him parades. If you
strip away the velvet, one man lost a costume,
the other keeps a lever. The double standard
is visible to anyone paying attention. It doesn't
rely on conspiracy. It's printed in Hansard and
reported in the business pages. It's in the donations
declared and the consultancies disclosed. The
speech is billed at corporate rates. The crown
survival mechanism is embarrassment. The government's
survival mechanism is indifference. What the
monarchy did to Andrew wasn't reform, it was
risk management. but it inadvertently exposed
how far below even that basic instinct Westminster
now sits. Because if a king operating under no
democratic mandate still recognizes that public
disgust is lethal, what does it say about a government
that doesn't seem to get that, even as it sits
at historic lows in the polls? At this point
the issue stops being about two men and becomes
about structure. The life period system was built
on the assumption that honor implies integrity.
It never accounted for the reality that power
outlives shame. There's no sunset clause on a
peerage. There's no public recall. The Lords
can suspend a member for misconduct, but it requires
the Lords themselves to vote for it. Imagine
MPs voting to remove their own donors. So that's
why it never happens. And this is where Starmer's
position becomes indefensible, because even if
you accept the legal obstacles, nothing prevents
him from setting a political example. He could
sponsor a motion calling for Mandelson to recuse
himself from party roles pending review. He could
state openly that the association with Epstein
is inconsistent with public service. He could
at least show that Labour understands the appearance
of corruption matters. But he won't, because
Mandelson knows the machinery, the donors, the
messaging, the polling architecture, the quiet
phone calls to editors. He no doubt also knows
where an awful lot of the bodies are buried.
To cut him off would be to expose how Labour's
pretence of respectability is built on the same
old connections. So the government hides behind
the crown's curtain as it were. It lets the monarchy
play morality so the Parliament doesn't have
to. The public sees the Prince fall and assumes
justice works. Meanwhile the political class
learn the opposite lesson that immunity still
holds as long as you sit in the right chamber.
Unfortunately for them not all of us are looking
the other way. Half the newspapers covering Andrew's
demotion used the phrase historic decision and
it was. But not for the reason they think it
is. It marked the moment the crown ended up looking
cleaner than the Commons. Because once you've
crossed that line, where monarchy looks more
accountable than government, you're not a democracy
anymore. You're in a managed state that performs
accountability at the top, so no one asks for
it further down. The palace sacrifices a son
to show virtue. The government protects a fixer
to preserve function. Between them sits the illusion
of order. Historically, Britain's titles have
always worked that way, as instruments of control,
not recognition. They define who can touch power
without ever having to answer for it. And in
that regard, it says a lot about the people who
choose to accept them. The Crown used them to
bind loyalty. Parliament used them to recycle
its own. When people talk about honours, they
mean insulation. Lord Archer kept his periods
through prison. Lord Ahmed kept his until conviction
forced his hand. Each case tested the same question.
Can disgrace alone remove privilege? And the
answer was no. Until Andrew. The monarchy's calculation
was a simple one, reputation or survival, and
it chose survival. The state's calculation is
different, exposure or control, so it chose control,
and that's why Mandelson states. His continued
presence tells every donor, every lobbyist, every
minister that the old system still works, still
holds its business as usual. One role for the
insider is a different one for everyone else.
The media plays its role by deciding which scandals
count as well, doesn't it? Andrew's face sold
papers, far more than Mandelson's name did, certainly.
Editors treat his proximity to Epstein as a footnote
because they need his quotes and his access and
his introductions. Britain's press doesn't cover
influence, it trades in it. And that's why Mandelson
remains useful, remains usable. He is fluent
in the language of plausible distance, the friend
of a friend, the unwise association, the regret
expressed. He might as well have written the
manual on how to manage a corporate crisis. They
exist to close stories, not open them. Money,
of course, comes into this as well. Labour's
rebranding under Stammer depends on corporate
confidence. Mandelson is to signal to the city
that nothing fundamental has changed. His Lord's
title isn't just a social decoration, it's a
badge that says the system will still look after
its investors. Removing him would have frightened
the same donors Labour now relies on completely.
So the Prime Minister's silence isn't indecision,
it's strategy. The psychological trick is that
the public expects higher standards from the
palace and from politicians. We're conditioned
to see royals as moral symbols and governments
as necessary evils. That inversion protects Westminster
though. When a royal falls it feels like justice
but when a politician doesn't it feels like politics.
The monarchy becomes the country's conscience
by default. Yet this is lethal for democracy
because once moral authority migrates from the
elected to the hereditary accountability collapses.
Every time the palace acts while parliament dithers
It teaches the public to look upward, not outward,
for integrity. The King becomes the national
referee while the government hides behind process.
That's not constitutional monarchy, that's moral
outsourcing. The legal facade remains intact
as well. The House of Lords Reform Act of 2014
still says peers can be suspended or removed,
but the House has no appetite to use it. Since
its passage, not one life peer has been expelled
purely for reputational reasons. The Lords police
themselves with the gentleness of colleagues
protecting pensions. And this is how Britain
maintains its fiction of accountability. Visible
punishment for the ceremonial class, invisible
immunity for the governing one. The contrast
makes the machine look balanced, but it isn't.
It's calibrated. Look again at the human consequences.
Andrew loses his titles, his home at Royal Lodge,
his formal identity. Mandelson loses a few board
seats in America and keeps his seat in the Lords.
The cost of scandal in Britain depends entirely
on whether your power is symbolic or structural.
The symbolic can be sacrificed. The structural
cannot. Even the language reveals it. The palace
strips titles. The government defers decisions.
One verb implies action, the other avoidance.
When Stammer tells journalists there is no reason
for Mandelson to step aside, he isn't defending
innocence, he's defending hierarchy. He's saying
the rules don't reach that high. The deeper pattern
runs throughout British history. The honours
system was supposed to fuse merit and service.
Instead it created an ecosystem of dependency.
Courteers, advisors, donors, lobbyists, all cushioned
by privilege. It has never produced accountability.
It's produced hierarchy with a moral accent.
And this is why every serious reform collapses.
Remove hereditary peers and the life peers close
ranks. Talk of abolition and the laws threaten
constitutional crisis. The very idea that a peerage
can be permanent and a democracy is absurd, but
it survives because it serves the same function
it always has, to make inequality look like expertise.
When the Epstein link re -emerged, Mandelson's
defenders called it old news, but old news only
stays buried when the structure that produced
it stays intact. The links were real. Confirmed
flights. Confirmed visits. Confirmed messages.
The only thing missing was the appropriate level
of consequence. The danger here isn't one man's
reputation. It's what his survival proves about
the state itself. It shows that moral failure
no longer threatens power. It's priced into it.
Starmer's government is already brittle. Polls
show support sliding after welfare cuts, after
Gaza, after so many other Starmer -inflicted
disasters. Trust is evaporating. Polling is at
historic lows. But rather than clean house, it
circles the wagons. It hides its most compromised
ally behind constitutional fog, calculating that
voters won't care. Maybe they won't. But institutions
rot quietly before they collapse publicly. Compare
that to the monarch's monarchy speed here. Charles
didn't wait for an inquiry. He read the mood
and he acted. The monarchy has centuries of practice
in self -defense. Starmer, who sells himself
as the restorer of integrity, couldn't even simulate
it. And that's the real story. A hereditary monarch,
accountable to no one, has demonstrated a keener
sense of public decency, albeit at a very low
bar here, than an elected Prime Minister has.
The question now is whether anyone inside the
political class recognises the danger here. Because
this isn't just hypocrisy, it's structural inversion.
Power is supposed to answer to democracy. Democracy
now answers to power. The palace performs morality
to keep faith in the state alive. The government
performs silence to keep its alliances intact.
Between them the public learns that accountability
is selective and punishment is ornamental. Every
system reaches a point where its contradictions
become visible even to those it governs. Britain's
there. The monarch strips a prince to prove virtue.
The prime minister protects a peer to prove stability.
If Labour wanted to prove it was different it
could act tomorrow. Introduce a bill to allow
suspension of peers for reputational damage alone.
Mandate declarations of past associations with
convicted offenders. Announce an independent
review of party appointments. But it won't happen
because reform would break the mechanism that
keeps the influence flowing. So the monarchy
will go on playing morality theatre and Westminster
will go on treating scandal as a change in the
weather. Mandelson will stay a lord, I'm sure.
Starmer will stay silent. Britain will stay stuck
between theatre and cynicism, a country that
punishes symbolism and protects substance. When
history looks back at this moment it won't remember
the paperwork, it will remember the hierarchy
of consequence. Andrew Mountbatten -Windsor lost
everything to save a crown. Peter Mandelson lost
nothing to save a government. One institution
still knows what shame is worth, the other sold
out to it long ago. Of course not everyone in
Labour wishes to be tired by Starmer's brushes,
36 councillors have walked just this year as
this video recommendation will tell you all about
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