By any standard, we’ve been going downhill for more than 30 years

JACK STRAW, the British Foreign Secretary, complained this week that the British invest too much faith in selecting judicial figures to chair inquiries.

He was referring especially to the Bloody Sunday inquiry, which has been "costing scores and scores of millions of pounds".

"I've been partly responsible for the establishment of such inquiries and I think I can therefore say with some confidence that I don't believe they are necessarily a satisfactory basis," he said.