So many reasons for an inquiry into Orgreave

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/01/so-many-reasons-for-an-inquiry-into-orgreave

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The shameful decision by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, to refuse a proper inquiry into possible police malpractice at Orgreave is yet another betrayal of justice (Report, 1 November). Documents are being withheld for 70-80 years, no evidence of what surveillance was carried out has been revealed, and nor has any member of the establishment been transparent about what policies arose out of that surveillance.

Hillsborough was followed by lies and cover up after cover up. It seems Orgreave is getting the same blinkered treatment. We need to know if there were covert agents provocateur. Were local magistrates leant on by Leon Brittan at the time of the dispute? Were demonstrators stitched up, smeared and deliberately entrapped?

Could the decision not to hold an inquiry be based on the fact that no Tory politician wants to reveal that Mrs Thatcher could have been fallible? Is it still too early as too many politicians are still alive?

The election of police and crime commissioners has done little to raise public confidence in today’s police forces. Unless we can reveal what happened in the past with absolute transparency we cannot have any confidence that the same possible malpractice is not likely today. Helen PenderOakham, Rutland

• If the man on the Clapham omnibus should ever find himself at Orgreave, he’d ask himself, as would any reasonable person who’s actually been there, whether it was reasonable that a hundred mounted policemen and two hundred of their colleagues on foot should rock up there in battle formation on a summer’s day in 1984 on the off-chance of there being a bit of argy-bargy at a little coking plant.

The logistics of the Battle of Orgreave were trickier than those for Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands flotilla so it’s reasonable to suppose that something must have been planned. Something big. Who’d planned the stables? The field kitchens? The vets? The latrines? The medics? The tech support? The communications? The back-up riot gear? What was the contingency? The exit strategy? Did the police do it all themselves? What other agencies were involved? Who was in charge?

Reasonableness demands public answers to these and a thousand other questions. They set the context for the battle. After these, questions of police rules of engagement, of the battle itself and of its aftermath can then begin to be addressed.

But, needless to say, Theresa May’s cabinet wouldn’t be seen dead on an omnibus, in Clapham or anywhere. And the man on the Clapham omnibus would get decidedly short shrift from Mrs May’s cabinet. And so the home secretary decides there’s no need for answers and we’re expected to think that’s reasonable.John SmithBeighton, near Orgreave, South Yorkshire

• I’m sure I’m not the only one to be disgusted by Amber Rudd’s decision not to hold a public inquiry into Orgreave. OK, nobody died and nobody went to jail. But that was only because of good luck, and because the cases that did go to court got kicked out due to a lack of evidence. But evidence does exist that the police were ordered to use excessive force and indeed fabricate evidence. Evidence exists from journalists that the BBC completely reversed its TV coverage so that it looked like the miners started the violence and not the other way around. This matter is not about deaths or jail, but about the state (ie, government old or new) abusing its power, brutalising its own people and using both propaganda and its position to cover up its actions. That is worthy of any public inquiry.Paul DodenhoffLeyland, Lancashire

• I remember talking to a TV news cameraman sporting a fat lip after his previous day covering Orgreave. His point was that he’d only been able to film the carnage from behind police lines so the world could only get a police-eye view of events. While justice is forced to take a back seat by Amber Rudd’s covering the backs of her predecessors, what about a properly constituted crowd-funded people’s tribunal to hear witness testimony from those involved at the time?Chris KaufmanLondon

• I suspect that today’s chaotic Tory administration would also have ruled out an inquiry into the Peterloo massacre. The denial of responsibility by the ruling oligarchy of 1819 led to the creation of the Manchester Guardian. What benison can we expect to ensue from Ms Rudd’s handwashing?Frank PaiceNorwich

• Could the home secretary’s surprising decision not to establish an inquiry into Orgreave by any chance be related to the role played by Conservative ministers in the miners’ strike?Jeremy BeechamLabour, House of Lords

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