Published by The i Paper (9th February, 2026)
As my late father aged, he grew despondent about the state of the world. A Scot born to a soldier serving in India, he landed American forces on the bloodstained D-Day beaches of Omaha before living a life of modest suburban success in Surrey. Yet like many older people, he had a tendency to bemoan modernity that left me determined to be an optimist, fired by faith in freedom and humanity.
Now I am in my sixth decade, however, the Epstein scandal reinforces why I find it hard to shake off a similar mood of pessimism, filled with foreboding over the future for democracy. Goodbye Morgan McSweeney – but he is just a footnote in this dark unfolding drama.
Here is a scandal about power and hypocrisy, with sordid events hidden in plain sight at the highest strata of society. The massive dump of Epstein documents exposes the sickening web spun by a wealthy paedophile, leaving grotesque stains on leading figures in finance, politics, technology, media, academia, even sport and royalty.
They give another depressing insight into the power of repulsive men to abuse women in the wake of the grooming gangs fiasco and gruesome Gisele Pelicot case – complete with macho boasts and insouciant jokes about girls. And they show the corrosive power of money as corrupt sleazebags flit around the world, enriching themselves still further through cosy networks.
Then there is the overpowering stench of hypocrisy emanating from emails so far released into the public gaze. The crude hypocrisy of elected politicians who claim to serve ordinary people while intent only on ruthless self-enrichment; of financiers and tech bros who talk about disruptive capitalism while exploiting corrupt circles of contacts; of academics who pose as social justice warriors while hanging out with a nefarious gaggle of billionaires, crooks and sociopaths. Even Thorbjørn Jagland – the former Norwegian prime minister who led Europe’s top human rights body for a decade and doled out Nobel prizes – seemed up to his neck in this fetid swamp.
These sanctimonious phonies symbolise the worst of the Davos crowd. The sort of arrogant elitists who jet around the planet on private planes while preaching about climate change, who spew out cliches on sustainability before boarding vast yachts, who talk passionately about gender equality before partying with a paedophile. And philanthropy is just another useful fig leaf for misdeeds in this amoral world.
So the disclosures suggest multi-billionaire do-gooder Bill Gates spent time with Epstein while being hailed a saviour of the world, miscreants were advised to launder their reputations with charity donations, and a prominent British financier allegedly had a party filled with models thrown for him by the convicted sex offender while leading a global anti-trafficking organisation.
Peter Mandelson was a central character among these shameless people – first in Westminster, then Brussels and Washington. Now he stands forever in the halls of political infamy, reviled for callous greed and chilling treachery.
Yet Mandelson is only one of the venal democratic politicians suddenly being exposed after trying to tap into this network – men who lusted to join Epstein’s seedy world of sex, money and influence – since the financier’s tentacles reached from London to Washington, Paris, Rome, Bratislava and Jerusalem. And lurking in the shadows are sinister signs of strings pulled by foreign states and influence possibly being peddled to our enemies.
Profound questions remain over the role of our Royal Family in a cover-up. Yet at the core of this shocking scandal, rooted in sexual atrocities, lies the sleazy nexus between money and politics that is so destructive to democracy. We see how one prominent British fixer called Ian Osborne promised to set up meetings with a prime minister, had lunch with a chancellor, and exchanged endless emails with Epstein after offering to cleanse a reputation soiled by soliciting prostitution from a child. Such was his influence that Downing Street asked him to arrange a meeting with the actor Woody Allen, another member of Epstein’s putrid circle. Needless to say, he has become incredibly rich, aided by funding from the crooked financier.
Power, of course, corrupts. Yet there is a grim irony that among the fall guys looks likely to be the latest British prime minister, a family man whose ambitions and lifestyle seem far removed from those debauched grifters who stayed on Epstein’s properties, cadged lifts on his “Lolita Express” jet and partied on his Caribbean beaches.
Sir Keir Starmer has lost his trusted shield now with McSweeney’s departure. Do you really think, however, that any of the Labour leader’s potential successors will have the guts and gumption to tackle the key issues underlying this scandal – over access, government, lobbying, regulation, sexual exploitation, transparency – that allowed young women to be trafficked around the world by powerful men for so long while creeps and their cronies dined, drank and scratched each other’s backs?
These hustlers are a scum on the surface of our society, undermining all the decent people that dominate even the worlds of finance and politics. Once again, however, we face another toxic crisis for democracy with the sense that our institutions are terminally diseased, our leaders all the same and that we are ruled by an arrogant elite telling ordinary folks what to do while playing by their own set of very different rules and looting our wealth.
And once again, the beneficiaries are those autocrats seeking to crush freedom along with their fellow-travelling populists who feast with delight on such scandals. Yet in another awful irony, the billionaire chancer elected to the pinnacle of Western democracy epitomises the same abusive attitude to women, corruption, deceit, racism and selfish contempt for societal well-being exposed by the horrifying legacy of his one-time friend. So it is hard to be an optimist these days.