04-05-2016, 07:36
I completely agree with the despicable cover up aspect of this and any other police action, that should be condemned and stamped out. From the perspective of legal action from that day it does seem that the system worked as it should have done and all the arrests were thrown out through lack of evidence and compensation was paid to those wrongly accused, as it should have been.
I just think we have to be careful to not throw around "justice" for this group or that group, there is a bad bunch that have been in charge of the SYP but it seems that all of the police are being tarred with the same brush and as at Hillsborough there were police at Orgreave who did nothing wrong except in some cases take a beating, we have to be careful to not blame every one of them for the actions of their superiors and other civil servants.
Innocent people are always getting caught up in things and always will, as we will always see some guilty ones get away scott free, we have to do all we can to minimize those incidents but on a day like Orgreave there were always going to be incidents between the police and miners and innocents were always going to find themselves in the middle of it. No different to trouble at football games in the 70s and 80s, I never went looking for it and never wanted to be involved but any football fan who went ended up in some very bad situations at some point.
The miners strike was a massive debacle from both sides, bad government and bad union leadership, it turned nasty without the need for any police interference on numerous occasions as feeling rode high and as it wore on it became a war of attrition between the Government and the miners union and in a lot of cases it was the police and other innocent bystanders who got caught in the middle of it time and time again. I worked in the steel industry in Sheffield at the time of the strike and the plant I worked at was picketed a couple of times by rogue miners who got little support from steelworkers fighting their own battles to save their own jobs at a bad time for unions and manufacturing in general in England.
I get those involved wanting to see the cover up exposed and dealt with but I still fail to see how we can class this as justice for miners, its more a case of justice for society as a whole and in a lot of ways justice for the tons of good police in South Yorkshire who had to work on the front line while their superiors pulled all sorts of stunts and never allowed them to simply do their job to the best of their ability. As we stand today, the only real winners out of taking this back to court etc is the lawyers, and ultimately the communities that suffered so much due to the closing of the mines will once again have their taxpayer residents paying for another long and expensive process with no real worthwhile outcome at the end of it. Expose the cover up, condemn the people who ordered it and then lets move on.
And I was never a Thatcherite back then, nor am I now, but I didn't hate her, I didn't celebrate her death and I can still remember the policies I disagreed with and the ones I agreed with, as we all should be able to with most past governments.
I just think we have to be careful to not throw around "justice" for this group or that group, there is a bad bunch that have been in charge of the SYP but it seems that all of the police are being tarred with the same brush and as at Hillsborough there were police at Orgreave who did nothing wrong except in some cases take a beating, we have to be careful to not blame every one of them for the actions of their superiors and other civil servants.
Innocent people are always getting caught up in things and always will, as we will always see some guilty ones get away scott free, we have to do all we can to minimize those incidents but on a day like Orgreave there were always going to be incidents between the police and miners and innocents were always going to find themselves in the middle of it. No different to trouble at football games in the 70s and 80s, I never went looking for it and never wanted to be involved but any football fan who went ended up in some very bad situations at some point.
The miners strike was a massive debacle from both sides, bad government and bad union leadership, it turned nasty without the need for any police interference on numerous occasions as feeling rode high and as it wore on it became a war of attrition between the Government and the miners union and in a lot of cases it was the police and other innocent bystanders who got caught in the middle of it time and time again. I worked in the steel industry in Sheffield at the time of the strike and the plant I worked at was picketed a couple of times by rogue miners who got little support from steelworkers fighting their own battles to save their own jobs at a bad time for unions and manufacturing in general in England.
I get those involved wanting to see the cover up exposed and dealt with but I still fail to see how we can class this as justice for miners, its more a case of justice for society as a whole and in a lot of ways justice for the tons of good police in South Yorkshire who had to work on the front line while their superiors pulled all sorts of stunts and never allowed them to simply do their job to the best of their ability. As we stand today, the only real winners out of taking this back to court etc is the lawyers, and ultimately the communities that suffered so much due to the closing of the mines will once again have their taxpayer residents paying for another long and expensive process with no real worthwhile outcome at the end of it. Expose the cover up, condemn the people who ordered it and then lets move on.
And I was never a Thatcherite back then, nor am I now, but I didn't hate her, I didn't celebrate her death and I can still remember the policies I disagreed with and the ones I agreed with, as we all should be able to with most past governments.