Forgive me, but I could not help shouting ‘Please, please, not another one’, when the BBC’s Newsnight announced, at the start of a breathless breaking news special, that the government of Andy Burnham had seemingly opened the door to a public inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s activities in Britain. ‘Survivors’ – forgive me again, I just can’t use this word in this context without inverted commas – and campaigners on their behalf have been exultant ever since.
In fact, the revelation wasn’t quite as categorical as has been made out. With the Prime Minister himself off on holiday, it was his victims minister, Alex Davies-Jones, who disclosed that Andy Burnham was planning a Downing Street meeting with ‘survivors’ of the late Epstein’s serial wrongdoing – something that his predecessor had never done – and had discussed convening a public inquiry when she was re-appointed last month. As was widely noted, however, the very mention of a potential inquiry makes it quite difficult for the government not to proceed without prompting howls about U-turns and betrayal.
Burnham will be pandering to what is a small, but highly articulate group of campaigners
Of course, giving the UK’s Epstein campaigners an inquiry could have some attraction for Burnham. It would offer an opportunity to draw another clear line between himself and his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer – given that Starmer grievously mis-read how far Peter Mandelson’s Epstein connection would destroy his credibility as UK ambassador in Washington and rub off on Starmer’s own position.
