The inquiry into a clash between police and striking miners at Orgreave over 40 years ago has more to do with a left-wing grievance narrative than getting to the truth, says Eliot Wilson

Last week the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced a public inquiry into “the events at the Orgreave Coking Plant on 18 June 1984”. This fulfilled a commitment in Labour’s manifesto to examine the violent confrontation between 6,000 police officers and up to 8,000 pickets of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) at the British Steel Corporation’s coking plant near Rotherham.

It also promises to be a self-indulgent waste of public money which resolves nothing.

The investigation is being established under the Inquiries Act 2005 and will be chaired by the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox. It will have powers to compel disclosure of information, and, if other inquiries conducted under the 2005 Act are any measure, it may cost in the region of £10m.

It would be a cynical observer indeed who pointed out how........

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