Orgreave inquiry formally under way into policing during miners’ strike
The government has announced the formal start of the promised official inquiry into the violent policing at the Orgreave coking plant during the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the discredited prosecutions of 95 men that followed,Yvette Cooper, who was then the home secretary, announced the inquiry in July with Pete Wilcox, the bishop of Sheffield, as the chair,The government has since worked on appointing an expert panel to consider the evidence,The terms of reference, similar to those of the landmark Hillsborough independent panel, are to seek the fullest disclosure of information and to produce a report by spring 2028 that will “aid public understanding”,At Orgreave on 18 June 1984, three months into the strike by the National Union of Mineworkers against planned pit closures, about 8,000 miners assembled for a mass picket and were met by 6,000 police officers from forces nationwide, led by South Yorkshire police.
The ensuing violence has become notorious, with police charging miners on horseback and hitting men over the head with truncheons.Prosecutions were brought against 95 miners but the charges were dropped during the trial in June 1985 after police officers’ evidence was discredited in court.Michael Mansfield, who represented several defendants, described the prosecutions as “the biggest frame-up ever”.The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, which has sought a statutory inquiry since forming in 2012, welcomed the announcement, although it said it was disappointed at the time taken to reach this formal start.The campaign said its members, who include former striking miners, had needed “determination and tenacity”, supported by the wider labour and trade union movement.
It said: “We have … tried our best to influence the process to ensure this does not become a police-led inquiry but one shaped by the miners and their experiences.”Sarah Jones, the policing minister, said the panel’s purpose was to get to the truth about the Orgreave events.She said: “I’ve had the privilege of meeting the campaigners, and I think the overriding sense of injustice is obviously palpable, but also the sense that people just haven’t been believed or listened to for a very long time.“What is important to me is that people have the confidence to come forward, with whatever information we’re going to need, and to be able to tell their story of what happened in a way where they know that they will be listened to and believed.”South Yorkshire police said they were “fully committed to supporting the Orgreave inquiry”.
The four panel members are Wendy Williams, a former chief prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service and inspector in the police and fire service inspectorate; Mary Bousted, a former joint general secretary of the National Education Union; Joanna Gilmore, a senior lecturer in law at the University of York who specialises in public order, human rights and policing policy; and Angela Sutton-Vane, a historian with expertise in archiving and preserving police records,Wilcox said: “I wish to help resolve a trauma that persists to this day – for the miners who were injured at Orgreave, who were arrested at Orgreave, who feel their story has not yet been fully told,For their families and communities, and for the relationship between police and the mining community,“I will follow the evidence without prejudice, wherever it may lead, wholly independent of government, law enforcement or any other public body,”
Jon Stewart on Donald Trump’s Iran lies: ‘Our Supreme Misleader’
Late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump’s tweet celebrating Robert Mueller’s death, his ICE intervention at chaotic airports and his bluffing on “talks” with Iran.Jon Stewart hoped you had a happy Monday, because “the dizzying, chaotic carnival ride that is Donald Trump’s America continues to careen down Shitshow Hill”, he said on The Daily Show. “It’s fucking madness out there: TSA lines longer than your actual trip, escalating threats in the Middle East, planes driving into trucks.”In fact, “the only thing giving me joy is looking forward to this season of The Bachelorette”, he joked, referring to the doomed season with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul, pulled three days before its premiere after video surfaced of a previously reported domestic violence incident from 2023. “I mean, they’ve got a strong Mormon woman
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at 60: Elizabeth Taylor still crackles with feral energy
After a long day at work, we may not instinctively leap to films about toxic marriages and relationship breakdowns – but by God they can make good drama. Blue Valentine, The Squid and the Whale and A Separation are some of the great portraits of love turned septic. But perhaps greatest of all is Mike Nichols’ directorial debut – a sizzling adaptation of Edward Albee’s legendary Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which arrived in 1966, four years after the play, and helped cement it in the zeitgeist.The film was nominated for every eligible Academy award and won five, including best actress for Elizabeth Taylor, who delivers a searing performance as the ferocious yet vulnerable Martha. It’s lost none of its gut-busting charge today and her brilliantly performed experience still crackles with emotional electricity
Punk masks, Walkmans and Choppers: Museum of Youth Culture to open in London
In the basement of a new-build housing block in Camden, the ventilation system is working flat out. The fans whir like a chainsaw orchestra bouncing around the concrete room as they attempt to deal with a slight damp problem. “This is what it’d sound like if there was a fire!” shouts Jon Swinstead, the driving force behind the Museum of Youth Culture, as he tries to make himself heard above the din.It’s hard to imagine but in a few weeks this empty, slightly soggy space will be transformed into an institution dedicated to all things teenage – a project Swinstead has been working on in one way or another for almost 30 years.Opening on 15 May, the museum has amassed a 100,000-item archive that tells the story of British youth subcultures from mods and rockers, to ravers and emo
‘Audiences told us we didn’t show enough teacher sex’: how we made Waterloo Road
‘In series one, it was bullying, drugs and alcohol. Twenty years on, it’s vapes, cyber-bullying and bloody energy drinks’I was working on women’s prison drama Bad Girls when the idea for Waterloo Road came up. Bad Girls creators Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus had a fiery belief in social justice and did rigorous research. Those are often the foundations of successful serial drama. Ann had once taught in a Glasgow comprehensive and was passionate about education: she believed we write off young people too readily
What does loneliness smell like? Inside the strangely soothing world of fragrance TikTok
I was bestowed with a nickname throughout my younger years: Smellanor. When I decided to go by Elle, the nickname evolved with it: Smell. I’m always a sucker for a fun rhyme. But it did make me hypervigilant about maintaining what I actually smelled like, vowing that this moniker would never manifest itself into reality. Thus began my ongoing journey into the wild world of fragrances
‘On the threshold of a new age’: inside the New Museum’s $82m expansion and landmark new exhibition in New York
Right now on the Bowery, a busy Manhattan thoroughfare, two supersized lovers embrace several stories up into the blue spring sky. Strapped against the New Museum’s industrial mesh exterior, the pair are frozen in a state of plasticized affection. Their grinning, almost smooching heads are pressed close and glossy torsos entwined. A massive hand, safe as a catcher’s mitt, encases them both, splaying wide across their waists as though to stop them crashing to the sidewalk.The site-specific sculpture is titled Art Lovers, a work by Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self, and marks the architectural “kiss point” between the New Museum’s original building and a new expansion
Two salon owners wanted to go zero-waste. Could they do it and keep their business afloat?
Ministers vow to spend record £8.4bn on road maintenance in England
Ticketmaster quietly raised other fees after US crackdown on hidden charges
Co-op boss quits after year marked by cyber-attack and claims of ‘toxic’ culture
Australian growth forecasts slashed as global economy faces inflation spike
Middle East conflict will damage UK’s economy ‘more than any other’