Untitled but entitled Andrew can't escape Epstein shadow

If I start this column by declaring I want to talk about two different committees - one, the public accounts committee at Westminster, and the other the congressional oversight committee in Washington – you would have every right to roll over in bed and go back to sleep, or indeed embark on those DIY jobs that you've been putting off for months.

- JON SOPEL

But if we throw the name Prince Andrew into the mix, and the threat that both could pose to him as he stays holed up in Royal Lodge, then I think it might just get your attention. In Britain this week - with what looked like a coordinated move from the leader of the Liberal Democrats and the prime minister - Sir Keir Starmer, in reply to a carefully crafted question from Sir Ed Davey, seemed to indicate that he was open to a parliamentary select committee examining the lease granted to the prince for his pad in Windsor Great Park - and yes, talking to the tenant himself.

Will it happen? I frankly doubt it. Parliamentary tradition is that you don't go near the royal family. You can scarcely mention the sovereign without the speaker crying "order". Look at it this way: the last time a member of the royal family was summoned before parliament, it was Charles I - and that didn't end well for the king.

This looks more like a way of increasing the pressure on the disgraced prince to leave the sprawling mansion on which he pays a peppercorn rent. The present King Charles can't impose internal exile (maybe a more humble ghillie's cottage on the Balmoral estate) but the political class can add a little pressure by suggesting an appearance before a Commons select committee.

But in America, there is no need for such deference. What's more, there isn't any. This was a country that came into being by getting rid of our royal family. It is also worth underlining that the Jeffrey Epstein saga still rages. There is fury - on right and left - that among all the powerful men who cavorted on Epstein's island, the only person convicted is a woman, Ghislaine Maxwell.