The Labour Party and the Royal Family appear extra concerned about saving their very own bacon than doing proper by Epstein’s victims: SARAH VINE

As the toxic fallout from the Epstein files continues, the great and the not-so-good embroiled in the whole stinking mess do what people like that always do when they’re caught out: take refuge in their gilded bunkers, flanked by expensive lawyers, advisers and ‘crisis management’ teams.

At a time when the rest of us are staring open-mouthed at the true horror of what went on, still trying to get our heads around the sheer levels of depravity, all they care about is themselves and their reputations.

Not the victims, whose voices many with power and influence tried so hard to silence; not the public’s trust and good will, so arrogantly betrayed; not the chaos and destabilising effects, which ultimately affect us all. Just themselves and their own sorry skins.

The priority now is personal damage limitation – hence the thoroughly unedifying spectacle of the past few days.

The Prime Minister scrambling to distance himself from his catastrophic errors of judgment by throwing most of his No 10 team under a bus; the Royal Family reluctantly issuing a series of, frankly, rather half-hearted statements in relation to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor; Ghislaine ­Maxwell pleading the Fifth Amendment before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Oh, and let’s not forget the ­profiteers, the ones who stand to gain from what all this will do to Keir Starmer’s premiership. Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and others in the Labour Party: they’ve all been salivating on the sidelines, just waiting for their moment to pounce. Never forget that in ­politics, one person’s downfall is another’s opportunity.

Rayner’s naked ambition is especially striking to witness.

What a piece of work. That video of herself getting her hair done on TikTok, talk about a brass neck. Then again, she’s never been possessed of much self-restraint.

Nor, to go back to the Epstein files, has she seemed unduly concerned about the victims of abuse. Look at her record on the British grooming gangs, ­strikingly similar to this scandal, only ­without the private jets and A-list names.

Last year, she voted against Kemi Badenoch’s amendment calling for a Parliamentary inquiry into the scandal involving hundreds of poor white working-class girls abused by Pakistani rape gangs. 

Why, you might well ask. Simple: it suited her politically. Now she’s played a pivotal role in propping up a prime minister who, if he had a shred of decency or propriety, would have resigned by now.

She’s become the kingmaker, arguably a more powerful (and certainly less dangerous) position than being in charge herself.

But she’s operating in a sewer: the Labour Party has revealed in no uncertain terms that its ­priority is the Labour Party, and not the country.

The only one who has even remotely enhanced his reputation is Morgan McSweeney, who at least had the decency to resign swiftly from his position as the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff over the Mandelson appointment, saying it was simply ‘wrong’.

Spot on. He’s right. It was wrong. Very wrong. I’m a little sad he’s gone now because clearly he’s the only one of the whole lot of them with a shred of moral fibre.

Because that is all that really matters here, isn’t it? Right and wrong, and knowing the difference. No ifs, no buts, no excuses.

These were vulnerable young girls, some of them little more than children, being trafficked and abused by Epstein and his cronies for their entertainment and pleasure.

This was a network of powerful men – and some women, including Maxwell but others too – who behaved with unbridled depravity, believing they would never be found out.

Those who colluded with that network, those who enabled their behaviour, those who turned a blind eye to it, or let the matter slide even after they knew full well the extent of the abuse, those who witnessed it and said or did nothing: they were just wrong. They should admit that instead of ­trying to shield themselves.

This whole scandal has exposed shocking levels of moral corruption and cowardice at the highest level. And yet for the two major institutions caught up in this – the Labour Party and the Royal Family – all that seems to matter considerably less than saving their own bacon. It’s not a great look.

The focus should be the ­nameless victims, not their abusers – and yet it seems it’s all the other way round.

What’s going to happen to Sarah Ferguson? Where is she going to live? Who’s going to pay for Andrew? How does this affect the King? Will the monarchy survive? What should happen to the Princesses? How will Starmer plough on? Who should succeed him? How can Labour distance itself from Mandelson . . . the questions are endless.

Quite honestly, who cares? What about those girls, now women? Aren’t they the only ones who matter? As far as I can see, the whole world owes them an apology, myself included.

I’ll be honest, I was never quite sure about Virginia Giuffre’s claims, largely because I was stupid enough to believe that a Prince of the realm would never stoop so low as to have an illicit liaison with a trafficked teenage girl. I couldn’t believe that the favourite son of Elizabeth II would behave so disgracefully.

Naively, I thought someone like Andrew would be better than that, not because I knew him ­personally but because I trusted in who and what he stood for: the Royal Family, the monarchy, a war hero. Why would he have any need to get mixed up in something like that, I asked myself.

What a fool I was, what a ­trusting fool.

Likewise, Sarah Ferguson. I always thought she was more sinned against than sinning, someone who had struggled with life in the public eye and made a few idiotic mistakes, but was fundamentally a good egg. Not, as it turned out, the kind of woman who cosies up to a convicted paedophile for the sake of money.

I had some notion in the back of my head that Giuffre’s claims were all madly exaggerated, that things couldn’t possibly have been as bad as she made out. Now we know they were not. And now the poor woman is dead.

Andrew, of course, continues to deny all the accusations against him, as do all those caught up in Epstein’s web.

Andrew’s supporters have even cast him as a kind of victim in his own right, deprived of his titles and forced to relocate to a mere farm in Sandringham. Poor Andrew, they say, it’s not right.

I tell you what’s not right. Being forced to perform sexual favours for rich and powerful men. Passing on market sensitive information. Inviting known paedophiles to Buckingham Palace, and­ ­treating them as revered guests. Using royal status and political ­influence to feather your nest.

And these are just some of the least outlandish scenarios emerging from the Epstein files. The rest doesn’t bear thinking about.

Epstein’s quagmire of the ­vanities is like quicksand for those he dragged into his dark web of depravity: the more they struggle to free themselves, the more it engulfs them. The trick is to stop fighting and admit defeat.

For both Starmer and the Royal Family the best way to survive this crisis is not to scramble for safety, but to accept responsibility and do the right thing.

No one is perfect, we all make mistakes. But what matters is what you do when you realise you’ve got things wrong. If that means making some tough decisions, so be it.

Better that than to be remembered as someone who cared more about saving their own bacon than doing right by the ­victims of one of the greatest scandals of our time.