By the time Jeffery Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he had established an enormous network of wealthy and influential friends. Emails made public this week show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the billionaire financier. Thousands of documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday offer a new glimpse into what Epstein's relationships with business executives, reporters, academics and political players looked like over a decade.
Many of us were devastated by [deputy PM] Angela Rayner's departure from the government last week. She's an extraordinary woman who's overcome the most extraordinary challenges and we are grieving and feel quite acutely that sense of loss. Now to have the dismissal of Peter Mandelson just the next week, I totally get it, of course Labour MPs will be despondent that in two weeks in a row we have seen significant resignations from public service.