Pressure mounts for Andrew to talk to the police

Gordon Brown is a man who gets into the detail.

- By Caroline Davies and Alexandra Topping

In office, and since then, he has applied his forensic mind to matters that concern him. Lately, he has been focused on the Epstein files. And what he discovered shocked him.

There was the immediate anger about the “extent of betrayal” by his former business secretary, Peter Mandelson, during the global financial crisis. But it was “the abuse of women by male predators and their enablers - and Britain’s as yet unacknowledged role” that left the deepest mark.

He looked at flight records, examined evidence and came to a conclusion: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should face police questioning over Jeffrey Epstein - and he’s not alone.

Voices around Westminster and beyond are now insisting that the role of British institutions in this most horrifying of scandals must be examined. That includes the monarchy.

Last Wednesday the junior Cabinet Office minister Chris Ward was cornered about the former prince by Sarah Owen, the chair of the Commons women and equalities committee. Mountbatten-Windsor was a trade envoy to countries including China and Hong Kong between 2001 and 2011. Wasn’t it time for him “to answer both to the police and parliament”, she asked.

MPs can no longer afford to be deferential when it comes to the royals, Owen said. “We have to do this to put faith back into systems where people have lost it. If we don’t, it weakens people’s belief in democracy, their trust in politics as a force for good. That risks us going down to a really dark path.”