The former Prince Andrew has been destroyed over Epstein. So why is Peter Mandelson, with the same connections, still sitting in power untouched? Right, so Prince Andrew’s out — stripped, erased, repackaged 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. The King swung the axe, all titles gone, Royal Lodge soon to follow. And yet Peter Mandelson, who spent his own holidays in Jeffrey 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: a monarch of all people playing moral referee while an elected government hides behind procedure to avoid doing likewise with Mandelson. Andrew loses his titles to save the brand; Mandelson keeps his but why? One rule for royals, none for Starmer’s sort? And presumably Starmer’s fine with that 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 30 October Charles signed off on the removal of every title and honour that 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 Killyleagh — all set aside, pending the legal wash-through that will eventually return them to the Crown. The same week, palace aides briefed that he would vacate Royal Lodge in Windsor and move into private accommodation. 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. After years of pressure — the BBC interview, the Virginia Giuffre lawsuit, the settlement that cost roughly £12 million — Charles finally did what the late Queen had only half done.