I base these posts on Fandango’s Who Won the Week posts, and I use the opportunity just to look at my own newsfeeds.

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Okay, Christmas is done, the New Year has arrived, let’s get down to business.

I just had a question this week, really. I’m wondering where this Jeffrey Epstein story will go this year.

Epstein, recall, was a convicted sex offender. We might reasonably conclude that he had acted alone, were it not for the conviction, just before Christmas, of Ghislaine Maxwell, for trafficking girls on his behalf.

The story has particular interest in the UK, not only because this crowd were international jetsetters, but also because our very own Prince Andrew has been thrown into the mix.

In the UK, it’s fair to say that the story has been reported with indignation. He couldn’t possibly have done anything. And, how dare someone suggest that he did!

I know from my blogs stats that most of the readers of this post will be American, and Americans might truly (and correctly) see him as just a guy, like anyone else. Who might commit a felony, like anyone else. But the UK is fed a line that our royal family is infallible, that they can do no wrong. Even otherwise objective news channels adopt an air of deference.

And there’s obviously something in what these women are saying, generally, because first Epstein, and now Maxwell, have been convicted.

So I’m just wondering where this story will go with regard to Andrew.

The convictions already secured seem to make the women’s testimonies more, not less, credible. And Virginia Giuffre has accused Andrew of sexual assault So, it could well be that a senior member of the royal family turns out to be a rapist. It’s in the public’s interest to know whether the allegations are true, I think. We fund his lifestyle, after all.

Think about it. All the spin, all the machinery… They’d have you believe that it just isn’t possible. But, isn’t it? Right now, who knows?

If he were found guilty, it would say every bit as much about the “establishment” as it would about Andrew. That the first instinct is to protect its own, rather than to want to get to the bottom of such a serious accusation.

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Most of you who know me know that I am a staunch republican, but I don’t think this is a republic/monarchy issue. It goes simply to right and wrong. Of his behaviour as an individual.

If anything, I feel sympathy for our queen because of the undoubted distraction that the story has caused. And, just in general, it must be difficult for a woman when her son is accused of sexual abuse. What if it is true? What would that say about how she’d brought him up? But fundamentally, one person can’t be responsible for somebody else’s conduct.

But I think *his* actions should be investigated, just like mine were when I was accused. And, fortunately, things seem to be moving slowly in that direction.