Her inquiry’s counsel, Ben Emmerson QC, who is adversarial rather than inquisitorial, and therefore unsuitable for an inquiry’s evidence-sifting task, is out. His unhappy team has broken under the strain. Although there is £1,700 a day to be had by whoever replaces Mr Emmerson, no appropriately qualified lawyer would want the work, because the task is both unprofessional and impossible.

At the same time, the inquiry’s “strand” looking into claims against one individual, the late Lord Janner, is tottering because the one-sided rules (in which, essentially, Lord Janner’s side has no clear rights) are unworkable.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, has announced that he will leave his job early. We do not know why, but it is notable that the report by Sir Richard Henriques on the police conduct of Operation Midland is due very shortly. It was the fantasist claims against Lord Brittan, Lord Bramall and others, fanned in Parliament by Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, which drove Midland forward and gave much of the impetus to the Iicsa. They have turned out to be crazy rubbish.

The situation is not easy, because Mrs May is our new Prime Minister, and she will not wish to admit that her idea, rushed forward in a political panic two years ago, cannot work. Yet, when everything else in politics fails, honesty is the best policy. If she were now to say that the child abuse issues are vital but the structure is wrong, suspend proceedings and call in an expert in inquiries to work out which bits can be salvaged, she would get more credit now than when forced to do the same thing later. 

A service for brave George Bell

Today, by coincidence, is the day in the Anglican calendar consecrated to George Bell, the wartime Bishop of Chichester. A place in that calendar is the nearest thing the Church of England gets to recognising post-Reformation saints. Yet poor Bell is the victim of the Church he served so bravely, posthumously condemned for child abuse on the basis of one person’s inadequately tested claims about alleged events 65 years ago

Bell’s many admirers are holding as special service at 4pm this afternoon at St Michael Cornhill in the City of London. Huge injustice has been done to many victims of child abuse. Now huge injustice is being done to many falsely accused perpetrators. This, too, must be recognised and put right, if any good is to come out of so much unhappiness. 

Why do Americans so hate Hillary Clinton?

It is a commonplace of British conversation just now that the choice facing Americans in their presidential election is unenviable. Nevertheless the balance, at least among people I meet, is clearly in favour of Mrs Clinton. Without warming to her, most find it hard to understand why so many Americans object to her so fiercely. 

To imagine American feelings, then, suppose that Cherie Blair were now the leader of the Labour Party. The analogy is inexact, I admit, since we do not have a presidential system and Mrs Blair has never held political office. But there are emotional parallels. 

I suggest that most people would feel at least two things. The first would be that Mrs Blair’s leadership today harked back to an era which ought by now to have finished: 2016 is not 1997. The second would be that there was something borderline corrupt and anti-democratic about the rise of the spouse of a former leader even when – as is the case both with Mrs Clinton and Mrs Blair – they are able people in their own right. 

These are both good objections. They don’t make Donald Trump right, but they make his popularity more comprehensible.

A phone haunted by Beyoncé

My mobile phone suffers from predictive text. The other day I mistyped a word – I think it may been “beyond” – and up came the suggestion of “Beyoncé”. 

Why? Since I had never in my life typed that name, so what put it in the mind of my iPhone? I can’t make it suggest Adele or Taylor Swift or even Shakespeare in comparable circumstances. Is this some form of human product placement? Does Beyonce have a deal with the phone’s owners, Apple? 

I suppose we shall know who is really winning the cyber-wars when I try to type, say, “putty” or “putain” and get “Putin” proposed instead.  

Made glorious summer

Sunday at the South of England Agricultural Show at Ardingly was a golden, harvest festival sort of day, attracting record crowds. As this year’s president, I handed over the prizes for the "Student Assignment Competition".

It was interesting that the two winners at the most advanced level both related to wine and both trained at Plumpton College. English wine has moved fast from being a joke to being a world-beater, at least in fizz. For the first time, in a London restaurant last week, I noticed "Sussex" on the wine list as an equivalent designation to Champagne.

I was informed yesterday that French champagne houses are now so concerned by their failure to beat the competition that they are joining it, buying up land for wine-growing in Kent. Another Brexit effect?