Spies and freemasons, rabbits and pheasants

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/29/spies-and-freemasons-rabbits-and-pheasants

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Via taxes, UK citizens pay for our police force. On whose behalf does that police force spy on liberal activists and politicians within our society? On whose behalf does our police force spy on Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green party (Police extremism unit spied on Green party’s Lucas over eight years, 29 April)? To whom does our police force report its findings from such spying activities?Jim McCluskey Twickenham, Middlesex

• Now that much 1980s paranoia regarding state conspiracy against working-class people seems to be justified (Suzanne Moore, G2, 28 April), what I’d like to know is: how many of the senior members of the South Yorkshire police who falsified evidence concerning Hillsborough, Orgreave etc were also freemasons?Dr Patrick O’SullivanLiskeard, Cornwall

• Would it not be a small but fitting memorial to the originality and independent-mindedness of Jenny Diski for the Guardian to now end the use in its pages of the automatic, and therefore meaningless, tabloid formulation “after a (short, long, brave) battle with cancer” when recording anyone’s death from the disease (Obituary, 29 April)? Please add this to the style guide in her honour.Mike HineKingston upon Thames, Surrey

• How ironic that the BBC is to produce a new adaptation of Richard Adams’ beloved modern classic Watership Down (28 April) when Newbury district council has given permission for developers to cover the ancient landscape where the rabbits began their journey with 2,000 houses. How prescient were Fiver’s “visions of impending doom”.Lin WilkinsonNewbury, Berkshire

• Are you sure that the new version of Watership Down isn’t a parable of what is happening to the BBC itself? Nothing controversial, spurious balance and all the life drained out of it? Possibly a cry for help?Margaret SquiresSt Andrews, Fife

• Is Ken Cordingley sure he has identified this pheasant correctly (Letters, 28 April)? Phil definitely lives in Cambridgeshire and regularly visits our garden with his wife Doris.Linda GreenEly, Cambridgeshire

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com