I saw Paula Vennells ugly-cry over and over. Pity it was for herself

If you have followed any of our public inquiries — Covid, Grenfell, Post Office, blood — you will notice a common factor. Not just the long line of lying, grey-mouthed, arse-covering officials. Nor the sleek, overpaid barristers trying to wring sense out of them. It’s this: literally not a single one of these officials will tell the truth. It is breathtaking: they all — ALL — lie.

What is the point of these many inquiries if we get no closer to what happened? Paula Vennells, for example: Britain’s “most hated woman”. Over three days I watched in disbelief as this strange, thin streak of slopped latte gulped and blinked, then ugly-cried four times, as her job as Post Office chief executive was painfully explained back