So a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse machine has finally testified before Congress, and the British government, ever eager to polish its moral credentials, now demands a global inquiry. Cue the predictable outrage, the solemn pledges of justice, the endless procedural theatre. Let us resist the urge to applaud. For what we are witnessing is not a genuine reckoning but a ritualised performance, a pageant of virtue where the applause drowns out the truth.

Consider the historical context. In the final years of the Roman Republic, the senatorial class developed an obsessive interest in moral legislation while simultaneously ignoring the rot at its core. Sumptuary laws, adultery statutes, endless commissions on bribery: all served as convenient distractions from the fact that the Republic itself was terminally ill. Sound familiar? Our own political class, confronted with evidence of a transatlantic trafficking ring that ensnared princes, presidents, and prime ministers, responds not with action but with inquiries. Why? Because inquiries are safe. They produce reports. They offer the illusion of progress while the powerful, the complicit, and the merely embarrassed are granted a quiet amnesty.

Let us be blunt: the Epstein affair is not a scandal. It is a revealing window into the nature of modern power. The man ran his operation for decades, with the full knowledge of intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and the wealthiest individuals on both sides of the Atlantic. His death, conveniently staged as a suicide, should have been the moment for a comprehensive purge. Instead, we got scapegoats. The focus narrowed to Epstein’s financiers, his pilots, his ghastly associates. The wider network of compromised elites remains untouched. The British demand for a global inquiry is especially rich coming from a nation whose own intelligence services allegedly participated in covering up Epstein’s activities. The same government that now thunders about transparency is the one that allowed Prince Andrew to retreat into shadow. Hypocrisy, it seems, is the only consistent principle in international diplomacy.

And what of the survivor? She deserves compassion, certainly, and a platform. But her testimony will be weaponised by factions, spun by partisans, and ultimately filed away in a drawer. The global inquiry, if it ever materialises, will be staffed by the same bureaucratic caste that has already failed repeatedly. It will deliberate for years, release a judiciously worded report naming a few minor figures, and recommend reforms that are quietly ignored. Meanwhile, the systems that enabled Epstein – the offshore banking, the legal impunity of the ultra-wealthy, the sex-trafficking pipeline that flows from Eastern Europe to private islands – will continue unabated.

I am not against justice. I am against the pretence of it. If the UK were serious, it would begin by recognising that its own laws on non-domiciled tax status and its own history of elite venality are part of the problem. It would strip diplomatic immunity from complicit officials. It would extradite Prince Andrew. But these steps would require courage, and courage is in short supply when the rot has seeped into every institution. The demand for a global inquiry is a classic imperial reflex: externalise the problem, blame the international system, and pretend that the solution lies in a multilateral conference. It is the path of least resistance dressed up as boldness.

Let us watch this unfold with clear eyes. The Epstein saga is not a morality tale about wicked individuals. It is a parable about structural decay. We live in an era of intellectual decadence, where we prefer symbols to substance, where the appearance of justice is more important than justice itself. The Roman parallel holds: when a civilisation loses the ability to confront its own failures, it turns to spectacle. The Congress hearing is a spectacle. The British call for an inquiry is a spectacle. The real work, the painful work of dismantling the networks of privilege and predation, will remain undone. And we will applaud ourselves for our concern while the system grinds on, indifferent to our performances.