Burnham calls for release of papers on the 'Shrewsbury 24'
Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham has called for the "full story" of the arrests of the "Shrewsbury 24" to be laid bare.
In a speech at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, he also raised police mistreatment of striking miners at Orgreave and the relationship between senior officers and the press.
Labour will push for the second part of the controversial Leveson Inquiry to go ahead and campaign to reveal how workers were treated unjustly in the past in order to build a more equal future, he said.
Mr Burnham, who successfully campaigned for the Hillsborough inquiry, is expected to back a similar probe into South Yorkshire Police's handling of violence at Orgreave coking plant during the 1984 miners' strike.
He will also push for the for the release of papers relating to so-called Shrewsbury 24, who were arrested five months after the 1972 building workers' strike and charged under the 1875 Conspiracy Act, with six sent to prison, including Royle Family actor Ricky Tomlinson.
The MP told the Labour Party conference in Brighton: "In recent years, we have learnt more about how we were governed in the 20th Century.
"What we know isn't good but we still don't know it all.
"We don't know the full extent of the collusion between senior police and press and that's why the second inquiry recommended by Lord Leveson must go ahead.
"We won't know the full story of Hillsborough until we know what the same police force did to the miners in the aftermath of Orgreave.
"And to understand how an anti-trade union culture developed in parts of our police in the past, we need the full story about the false convictions and imprisonment of building workers in Shrewsbury.
"I will make it my personal priority in this job to put the pieces of this jigsaw together - alongside other historical injustices we have seen - child sexual abuse and exploitation, the blacklisting of workers, the abuse of stop and search powers against black and Asian young people."
Mr Burnham told the Government: "No more delay - give us the full truth about Shrewsbury, give us the full truth about Orgreave, justice demands it.
"We can only build a more equal society in this century when we know about the injustices of the last."
In a version of Mr Burnham's speech published by the Labour Party it emerged that the shadow home secretary had already anticipated a warm reception from delegates and written it into his pre-prepared notes.
In the written text sent to reporters with advice to "check against delivery", the speech began: "Conference. What a welcome - not bad for a runner-up!"
