The UK has a record number of public inquiries, but the government appears to approve them selectively — embracing those that blame ideological opponents while delaying or resisting those that might implicate current ministers, writes Eliot Wilson

Do you know how many public inquiries are currently taking place or agreed in the UK? I’ll tell you: the consensus is 25, of which five have been announced this year alone. This s a record, but since 1997 there have never been fewer than five inquiries in progress, and the past 20 years have seen the creation of 60 new investigations. So it is not unreasonable to ask what is going on and why this is happening.

There are two principal kinds of public inquiry, statutory and non-statutory. The former, which accounts for all but three of the current crop, operates under the provisions of the Inquiries Act 2005 and the Inquiry Rules 2006, giving it the power to compel witnesses to attend and making a presumption that its proceedings will be public. The act attempted to rein in the potential scope, duration and cost of public inquiries, after the Bloody Sunday Inquiry ran for 12 years with a bill of £180 million.

There are — or........

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