YP Letters: Rudd right to block inquiry on Orgreave

THE Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, is to be congratulated for refusing an inquiry into the events at Orgreave. Justice was delivered, many years ago, for all concerned.

For taxpayers, a democratically-elected government was not brought down by a series of violent, illegal strikes. For miners, the criminal trials against them were dismissed because of the unreliability of the police evidence.

Moreover, for the embattled South Yorkshire force, they can now ensure all available resources are directed to today’s challenges –in particular ensuring all people involved in recent paedophile sex abuse scandals are brought to justice.

We would all be better served if people in public office were to spend less time grandstanding over events from three decades ago and more on the issues that concern us now.

From: Mike Smith, Birkby.

SOME may think it unfortunate that the Orgreave incident has become linked with the Hillsborough tragedy (The Yorkshire Post, October 1) because their backgrounds were totally different.

Hillsborough resulted from errors of police judgement on a single occasion arising from a background of previous incidents of football crowd violence and worthy of investigation.

Orgreave on the other hand was a deliberately organised and provocative event as part of a campaign to bring down a democratically-elected government.

Orgreave campaigner Barbara Jackson wants truth and justice but does she want the whole truth or just the bits that suit the miners’ case?

The truth is the amount of deep-mined coal became progressively unaffordable or necessary for several reasons. It was also an unreliable source of energy due to successive strikes ever since the days of nationalisation.

We shall never know if a more constructive approach by the miners’ leaders might have enabled a more sympathetic reduction of the industry to the longer term benefit of the deprived mining communities. Instead of that, their leader declared outright ‘war’ on the Government – and people get hurt on both sides in wars.

From: John Dawson, Gainsborough Court, Skipton.

HOW very disappointing to read The Yorkshire Post editorial on Orgreave. Nothing would be gained by an inquiry into these events from so many years ago. I am amazed that the newspaper I have read all my life thinks differently.

The only beneficiaries of an inquiry would be the political far Left and, of course, the lawyers. Millions of pounds would be spent telling us what exactly?

We know what happened in 1984. Some miners led by Arthur Scargill went on strike, attacked miners who wanted to work, attacked the police and tried to bring the country to a standstill and to bring the democratically elected Government down.

The Government and the forces of the law prevented them succeeding, thank goodness. Yes, afterwards South Yorkshire Police may have behaved badly but we know that too. Common sense has prevailed.

Amber Rudd deserves great credit for standing up to the pressures for an inquiry by politically motivated people which would have just led to political grandstanding by the far Left. The Yorkshire Post deserves no credit for its stand on this issue, an emotional and irrational tirade.

From: David Downs, Sandal, Wakefield.

I AM totally at odds with the comments set out in your Orgreave editorial, accusing Amber Rudd of gross arrogance in not allowing a public inquiry into the so-called “Battle of Orgreave”.

I watched the Parliamentary debate and there was no sense of arrogance whatsoever in her presentation: she had made a decision based on the evidence before her and presented it in a very constructive manner.

On the contrary, it was the manner in which the two sanctimonious MPs, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott, put forward their criticisms: they were made without genuine held convictions and were purely hypocritical political manoeuvring.

The integrity and incompetence of the South Yorkshire Police during the 1980s, has already been established by the Hillsborough Inquiry, so there is no point in debating this again.

From: Charles Rushton, Pasture Close, Strensall, York.

YOUR front page (The Yorkshire Post, November 1) does not represent the views of the majority of your readers and also presents a very one-sided scenario of Orgreave in 1984.

This country has a history of union militancy from the 1950s onwards, and in 1974 we found ourselves trying to maintain industry in a three-day working week thanks to the open war declared on Government which succeeded in ousting the Edward Heath government.

Forward to 1984, and a very bellicose Arthur Scargill decided he would repeat this by ousting Margaret Thatcher’s regime. This involved mass picketing carried out by thousands of union bully boys fully prepared to paralyse power production and thereby repeat 1974.

This time, however, he failed. A large part of our country demanded that union violence, threatened and actual, had to be met by the forces of law and order.

The rest is history and no amount of left-wing fairy stories turns union thugs in their thousands into peaceful pickets prepared to discuss the situation, it is strange that no mention is made of the violent events triggered by their members.

Many of your readers will be as disgusted as myself. Can you press for an inquiry into the influence of known Communists in this attempt to usurp the powers of our rightfully elected-Government?