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As the flames of the Epstein Inquisition burn higher, let me get my general confession into the public domain before the guardians of public morality come for me. Here begins my deposition. I, Matthew Francis Parris, do solemnly confess that I know slightly and have been on mostly friendly terms with former British ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson; and continue to believe him to have been a far-sighted force in the creation of a sane and successful Labour government such as we so notably lack now. I CONFESS: that I know former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, who knows Lord Mandelson, who knew Jeffrey Epstein, and appointed Mandelson to high office in the last century.

No matter how many jurisdictions discover the hard way that wealth taxes backfire, in California an initiative is collecting signatures to put a "one-time" (ha!) 5 percent tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires on November’s ballot. Hey, those guys are rich. They won’t even notice. But the funny thing about people and money is that even folks with lots like to keep it. The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act is slyly retroactive, a variety of pre-crime legislation – applying to anyone resident in California on 1 January this year, looping a bungee cord around the ankles of would-be absconders. Thus billionaires such as Peter Thiel scrambled to establish a presence in a lower tax state before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

They say you should never meet your heroes, a rule that is not always correct. But I did have a salutary session some years ago when a friend in New York asked me if I wanted to meet a comedian I really do admire. I had been looking forward to the meeting, but unfortunately it took place during the summer of 2020. If you remember those far-distant days, this was a time when America was obsessing over the story of alleged disproportionate police violence against black Americans. One of the cases was that of a woman named Breonna Taylor. Although the case for the police’s actions and the victim’s innocence revolved around a number of issues, the main one was whether officers should have shot when they did.

Idly watching the first episode of a TV crime drama series recently, I found myself in a slightly troubled frame of mind. We were already 35 minutes in and no probable villain had shown their face. We had seen black people, Chinese people, lesbians, the disabled, the impoverished and powerless, Muslims, the young and idealistic… yikes, I thought to myself, it simply can’t be any of them, can it? Surely not. And then, as if the scriptwriter had heard my private worries, for lo, a very rich, marble-mouthed white woman emerged and was shown being beastly to some young and idealistic people and I thought: bingo! We have our villain. There is no need to watch the remaining five episodes. She did it, the rich cow. The only slight surprise is that it was a woman rather than a bloke.

I grew up in the 1980s but in many ways it was more like the 1880s. We lived with my grandmother on the Northumbrian coast and the routine of our days echoed the routines of her youth, perhaps her mother’s and grandmother’s, too. We were like an elephant family in an African game park, following our matriarch around ancient migratory routes, oblivious to the rise and fall of regimes outside. Lunch (no elbows on the table), a walk to the sea, sherry time (Amontillado dry); then my grandmother and my clever younger brother would play Piquet while the children of lesser focus played with the open fire. And we sang around the piano, my grandmother playing, folk songs and ballads from the northeast: "Barbara Allen"; "The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy," "The North Country Maid," "The Golden Vanity.