To lose one sex abuse inquiry chief is unfortunate. To lose two looks like carelessness.
And Keith Vaz, the indefatigable and tenacious chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, claims Theresa May is guilty of far worse than carelessness.
Threatening to haul Alderman Fiona Woolf before his committee for a second time, he says the Home Secretary's appointments process has been chaotic.
New readers start here:
Under enormous pressure from MPs, Mrs May announced an inquiry into allegations dating back to the 1980s, when the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens took a dossier of complaints to the then home secretary Leon Brittan.
But her first choice to head the inquiry, respected judge Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, had to quit after complaints that her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general at the time.
So after much delay, the Home Secretary announced that Mrs Woolf, the current Lord Mayor of London, had been chosen. Her appointment was initially welcomed by MPs, but not for long.
It became apparent that Mrs Woolf is friendly with Diana Brittan, wife of Leon. The Woolfs and the Brittans live in the same street and have attended charity functions together.
After a photograph of Mrs Woolf chatting to Lady Brittan (and the former newsreader Martyn Lewis) appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail, Mr Vaz wrote to the Lord Mayor asking for an explanation.
Has she cleared up any misunderstanding? Far from it. She's now even deeper in trouble and in danger of being forced to quit, just like Baroness Butler-Sloss.
That's because Mr Vaz suspects nobbling by the Home Office, after he learned there had been seven drafts of her letter. And even then, the letter "raises more questions than it answers about an appointment process that has been chaotic".
The correspondence reveals all sorts of meetings with the Brittans, all innocent, she claims. But Mr Vaz isn't letting go.
"The lessons of the Butler-Sloss appointment and resignation have not been learned," Mr Vaz thunders.
"There should have been full disclosure of this information before, not after, her appointment. The committee will consider the issue of her recall at its meeting on Tuesday, 4 November."
The lessons of all this? Don't try to hide a friendship with a former home secretary and his wife, which is bound to be revealed eventually. If rumbled, fess up and don't wriggle. It will only make matters worse.
And, above all, don't mess with Mr Vaz, who may be a silky-voiced smoothie when he chairs his committee, but is terrier-like in his pursuit of the facts, exposing cover-ups and condemning blunders at the heart of government.
Mrs May should know that by now. And her handling of this sorry affair does now indeed look, as Keith Vaz says, chaotic.
And so if she does lose her second abuse inquiry chief in just a few months she will look like a serial bungler.
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