In the wake Prince Andrew’s arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gave an interview in which he said “nobody is above the law.”
And the media lost no time in proving my point. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson echoed it in an interview of her own. Everyone from Al Jazeera to the South China Morning Post has taken up the cry.
In one of those curiously timed coincidences, the UN actually used the same exact phrase just a day before Sir Keir.
Then there’s this long article in the Atlantic, I won’t sport with your intelligence by relating the bulk of the text, we concern ourselves only with the concluding paragraph:
The former Prince Andrew acted as he did because he lived in a world in which someone like him never faced consequences. That isn’t true anymore.
That’s the narrative in a nutshell. The system is fair and treats everyone the same. Old Guard bad, corruption being rooted out, accountability for the old boys club. Like #MeToo on crack.
In this vein we have the arrest of Peter Mandelson.
The investigation, and alleged attempted suicide, of Norway’s former PM Thorbjørn Jagland
The resignation of World Economic Forum chief Børge Brende over his “Epstein links”
The “retirement” of Harvard President and former Treasury Secretary of Larry Summers
Even stuff as small as the revelation of Bill Gates’ affairs with a couple of Russian women.
None of those latter four come close to actual arrests, of course. And the story is very much that while the UK (and Europe in general) are willing to act on Epstein, the US is lagging behind.
Hellbound and Down 