Challenges for the Occupy movement

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/29/challenges-for-the-occupy-movement

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Thank you for Giles Fraser's moving piece on the eviction of Occupy LSX from St Paul's (From a colourful camp to a dismal metal fence: the end of Occupy St Paul's, 29 February), but where was your reporting on the actual events? The photo of police dragging George Barda from the steps is revealing, but why no comment from the Guardian about the questions this raises? The court eviction order applied to the tents and specifically excluded people, so why was he (and others) removed at all? And bailiffs evict, the police attend only to ensure public safety, so under what powers were the police acting, and was it beyond the scope of the court order? Perhaps the cathedral asked the police to remove all people? If so, why? We ought to know. And why no word on the more questionable, more violent eviction that took place simultaneously at Occupy's School of Ideas? Within hours of this action, Islington's long-disused Moorfield primary school was demolished. Not newsworthy? Susan Bailey Kings Langley, Hertfordshire

• Your editorial (29 February) seems baffled and a little disdainful about the decision-making process of Occupy – namely by consensus at a general assembly. It is right, of course, that if you want a train ticket to Cardiff you do not need a discussion about it, rather to check fares and times on a website. Centralism in some matters allows space for democracy in others, and the general assembly, or mass meeting, is a very democratic form.

The issue comes with decisions that are taken. Who is tasked with doing them – clearly not everyone – and how are they held accountable? This is the question the labour movement has grappled with for the last 200 years or so. Regular elections and the right of recall of officers are important, though no guarantee of success. But as Occupy will now find, such mechanisms are needed to carry organisations and movements through the troughs as well as the peaks of activity. Keith Flett London