I am writing concerning your article ‘Two charged as protests end in Gloucester Green stand-off’ (Monday's Oxford Mail).

I’d been wondering why the east and centre of the city had been crawling with police on Saturday morning when I turned into St Ebbe’s and discovered some 30 ‘National Front’ demonstrators surrounded by as many variegated officers, two of them on horseback.

I’ve no comment about whether the former should be allowed to exist or, if so, protest, but the constabulary were systematically moving on, sometimes rather nervously, largely apparently ordinary would-be passers-by who were, often fairly briefly, stopping to listen unobstructively and more out of curiosity than anything, it seemed.

This was not least as some of the younger and foreign observers had clearly never heard of the organisation, which I myself thought superseded years ago.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of such a movement, there seems little point in letting them voice their views ‘publicly’ if no-one is permitted to hear them properly. Maybe somebody can provide a valid explanation.

Sam Inchcomb, Howard Street, Oxford

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