Your report on the widespread use by the police of bail to ban people from attending lawful demonstrations (26 December) echoes events 30 years ago. As the cabinet papers are released covering the last four months of the 1984-85 miners’ strike, we need to remind ourselves of the scale of police involvement in the strike and the extensive use of bail conditions to prevent miners picketing. The figures speak for themselves: 11,313 miners were arrested, 5,653 put on trial, 200 imprisoned and, as a result of convictions, 960 miners were sacked by the National Coal Board. Thirty years on, questions of the state’s involvement, fabricated police statements leading to dubious convictions and the aggressive policing at Orgreave on 18 June 1984 remain unanswered. We still need a full public inquiry into the policing of the strike.
Granville Williams
Editor, Settling Scores: The Media, the Police and the Miners’ Strike
• I was delighted to read your two pages of tributes (In praise of …, 31 December) and especially what Owen Jones wrote about my friend Mike Jackson, one of the founders of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners during the 1984–85 strike. The tribute to Mike followed that by Giles Fraser to Richard Coles. Richard was also involved in LGSM. He and Jimmy Somerville starred as Bronski Beat at the LGSM benefit at Camden’s Electric Ballroom in December 1984 to raise money for the miners and their families.
Chris Birch
London
• Charles Powell and Bernard Ingham were way out of line from a neutral and non-party civil service (PM’s aides plotted against Heseltine, 30 December). And this was by no means the only example. Even more blatant was Ingham’s appearance at Thatcher’s side in November 1990, facilitating her access to the cameras during the Tory leadership battle. That was the last place a civil servant should have been. Needless to say the pair were subsequently honoured with a peerage and knighthood respectively.
Robin Wendt
Chester
