The independent inquiry into historical child sexual abuse resembles one of those Jacobean tragedies in which the stage is piled ever more improbably high with the bodies of the leading characters.

The corpses in this production — based on an original idea by Theresa May — include no fewer than three chairwomen, followed last week by the lead counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson QC, and his deputy. The last of these, Elizabeth Prochaska, had resigned two weeks earlier, it transpired; she was herself a replacement for Hugh Davies QC, who had also failed to survive the course.

In two…