Peter Rhodes: Keeping Fletch behind bars

OUR changing language. I've lost count this week of the number of times radio and TV commentators have told us that the gap between Clinton and Trump is "tightening." A spanner tightens; gaps narrow.

THERE are two ways of reducing overcrowding and violence in prisons. The expensive way, announced yesterday by Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss after talks with union leaders, is to recruit and train thousands more prison staff. Let us hope she can get the £100 million-a-year bill past the Treasury. The state's bean-counters, always looking to save money, may prefer the cheaper option of flinging wide the prison gates and giving thousands of Norman Stanley Fletchers their liberty. The snag with the cheap option is that it tends to be very expensive for the rest of us. The cost of one prison officer's peaceful night shift on B Wing may be a burglar in your bedroom.

ONLY a few years ago, we were assured that eating eggs caused high cholesterol and clogged your arteries. Then we were told the theory was nonsense. And this week we are told that a review of 300,000 patients in America suggests an egg a day keeps strokes at bay. A moment's silence, please, for those who put their faith in the experts, stopped eating eggs and died of strokes.

I SUGGESTED yesterday that some sort of inquiry into the 1984 Battle of Orgreave might demolish the folklore about this unseemly punch-up between cops and miners. But explaining the events of 1984 to 21st century youngsters is tricky. The whole world has changed.

YOU see, kids, there was a time, not so long ago, when Britain thrived by burning coal. Over the centuries Britain sent literally millions of its young men – including my father - into the bowels of the earth to dig out the wretched stuff. Thousands of them perished horribly in pit disasters and many thousands more died of lung disease. The grim toll of their labours extended into every smoke-blackened town and city. In the Great Smog of December 1952 in London alone 4,000 people died. The miners who confronted the police at Orgreave innocently helped to create the global warming we worry about today. They were fighting to prolong an industry that today's young people, steeped in the new religion of climate change, CO2 emissions and renewable energy, regard as profoundly immoral. The lads who fought Thatcher's cops at Orgreave may like to claim the moral high ground, but they were on the wrong side of history.

MEANWHILE, do you detect the sickly whiff of hypocrisy? Home Secretary Amber Rudd rules out a full inquiry into Orgreave and some Labour politicians cry shame. Yet Labour was in power for 13 years. They had plenty of time to hold an inquiry. So why didn't they? All together now: "Bah, humbug!"

WHAT a huge privilege it is to live through great moments in history. Seven days from now and the die will be cast. In the years to come we may be able to tell our grandchildren how things were in the week before America officially went mad.