Mandelson and the two elites

No writer can contain the scandal in an elegant sentence. The subclauses pile up. Soon after the financial crash, as a UK minister of state, Peter Mandelson forwarded sensitive emails to Jeffrey Epstein, who even at the time was a convicted child sex offender, and had previously given cash to Mandelson, who later “lied” about the relationship, according to the current prime minister, to get appointed ambassador to Washington. “Britain’s worst political scandal since at least the Profumo affair”, might be easier. What, besides disgust, should the public take from it? For one thing, a better understanding of the elite(s). Let’s start with the rich. Most people do not find money — or the main ways of making money, such as banking — intrinsically interesting. This might be less true in societies that are new to wealth. But it holds in the established western cities. There, the self-made often discover too late that all their work and risk-taking has brought them less social status than exp

No writer can contain the scandal in an elegant sentence. The subclauses pile up. Soon after the financial crash, as a UK minister of state, Peter Mandelson forwarded sensitive emails to Jeffrey Epstein, who even at the time was a convicted child sex offender, and had previously given cash to Mandelson, who later “lied” about the relationship, according to the current prime minister, to get appointed ambassador to Washington. “Britain’s worst political scandal since at least the Profumo affair”, might be easier. What, besides disgust, should the public take from it? For one thing, a better und