What hit you was the number of lawyers, a phalanx of black suits at computer screens, fingers feathering the keyboards.
asserted
hit → hit → keyboards
At the far end of the soulless, rectangular room, a witness related corporate tensions from 15 years ago.
asserted
witness → relate → tensions
A designer-stubbled barrister helped this former military police Major assemble her complaints.
asserted
Major → stubble → complaints
Progress was glacial, but that hardly mattered.
asserted
that → matter → ?
Such was the scene on Wednesday at the independent inquiry relating to Afghanistan, which is probing alleged war crimes by the SAS in Helmand province between 2010 and 2013.
asserted
which → relate → 2010
It is one of 30 or so public inquiries grinding their way through the sausage machine of our body politic.
asserted
It → grind → politic
Inquiries are lucrative for lawyers and the judges who habitually chair them.
asserted
who → chair → them
It was said that some senior silk in the Hillsborough inquiry pocketed more than £1 million each.
asserted
silk → say → million
The going rate on the inquiries circuit is up to £250 an hour for barristers.
asserted
rate → go → barristers
Others also profit.
asserted
Others → profit → ?
Document-management platforms are making a ‘bandit’s packet’ (to quote one source) from inquiries.
asserted
platforms → make → inquiries
Oh yes, inquiries look after themselves.
asserted
inquiries → look → themselves
The Afghanistan inquiry has a free, well-stocked coffee bar.
asserted
inquiry → have → bar
No wonder that one former Lord Chancellor has been heard to say that ‘inquiries are a total disgrace’.
asserted
inquiries → hear → ?
Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced another public inquiry into the Manchester synagogue attack, only this week
But short of holding an inquiry into inquiries, what can be done?
To attend the Afghan inquiry hearings – something almost no citizen bothers to do – you head through a dingy doorway by a building site near St Paul’s Cathedral.
asserted
you → announce → Cathedral
‘Take the lift to the first floor,’ advised a receptionist.
asserted
receptionist → take → floor
And there, in a low-ceilinged modern office complex, it was: a nest of taut-faced advocates being paid by the state to rake over historic events.
asserted
it → pay → events
I counted 24 lawyers plus another 13 legal-looking bods in the public seats.
asserted
I → count → seats
The one sitting in front of me was from Matrix Chambers, the Left-wing legal outfit.
asserted
one → sit → Chambers
She spent some of the time looking at details of her upcoming corporate away day.
asserted
She → spend → day
Perhaps the legal profession forgets that members of the public or the nosey press may sometimes be in attendance.
uncertain
members → forget → attendance
Proceedings opened with an usher’s stern injunction that we should respect the majesty of the law.
asserted
we → open → law
After a cry of ‘all rise’, in loped the inquiry’s chairman, Sir Charles Haddon-Cave, 70, sometime senior presiding judge for England and Wales.
asserted
chairman → lop → England
A long, lean lad with the bearing of a hungry heron, he mounted his dais with a skip and settled down to another day of creamy eminence and delicious emoluments.
asserted
he → mount → eminence
Something similar plays out at hearings of the Post Office Horizon scandal inquiry, the Salisbury poisonings inquiry, the Omagh bombing inquiry and many others.
asserted
Something → play → inquiry
Ministers find inquiries moreish.
asserted
inquiries → find → ?
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced another one, into the Manchester synagogue attack, only this week.
asserted
Secretary → announce → attack
Once created, they may lose their appeal for politicians.
uncertain
they → create → politicians
Communities Secretary Angela Rayner is accused of ‘not engaging’ with the inquiry into grooming gangs.
asserted
Rayner → accuse → gangs
By the time it reports, she could be in the House of Lords.
uncertain
she → report → Lords
There is the Cranston inquiry on small boat crossings, the Southport inquiry on the 2024 stabbings, the Northern Irish Truth Recovery Independent Panel, the Fuller inquiry into necrophiliac killer David Fuller, the Anglioni inquiry into the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by off-duty Met Police officer Wayne Couzens… well, the list is long.
asserted
list → be → Couzens
The current jackpot daddy of them all is the Covid inquiry presided over by Lady Hallett.
asserted
daddy → preside → Hallett
That has gobbled more than £200 million of public money.
asserted
That → gobble → money
The Haddon-Cave operation is more frugal, having gone through £58 million so far.
asserted
operation → go → million
Not that we know when it might report.
uncertain
it → know → ?
It has been going only three and a half years.
asserted
It → go → ?
Last Monday, the House of Lords debated the Robert Hamill inquiry, which has only just published its report into the death of a young Roman Catholic, Robert Hamill.
asserted
which → debate → Catholic
He was kicked to death by loyalists in County Armagh in 1997.
asserted
He → kick → 1997
That was 29 years ago, four years longer than the unfortunate Mr Hamill lived.
asserted
Hamill → live → ?
What must his family think?
asserted
family → think → What
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
