NO SOONER had Tory George Osborne finished announcing his Robin-Hood-in-Reverse budget on June 22 than Worthing people were protesting against it.
Around 30 of them attended a Budget Day protest at Worthing town hall, including members of UNISON (representing 4 different workplaces), CWU postal workers, and PCS and GMB members.
Said organisers: "We got good support from passing motorists. In building for the protest we have made new links with many more trade unionists in the town and with workers who would like to join unions."
A few days later, on June 26, Porkbolter supporters put across a similar message while leafleting the Armed Forces Day event at Steyne Gardens - asking why we are wasting our lives and resources on fighting for American corporate control of Afghanistan when there is a crucial war to be fought at home - a war for our very future.
The ConDems’ first budget is just a phase one of a major assault. The rights that our ancestors battled to win for posterity are about to be stolen from us - 200 years of social progress wiped out in one fell swoop.
The excuse is the "economic crisis" and the "massive debts" that we supposedly owe. But who caused this crisis? The greedy, irresponsible speculators of the international finance and banking system. And who do we "owe" all this money to? The very same bankers! This is nothing but daylight robbery.
The ultra-rich have decided the rest of us have become so stupid and gutless that they can now trample all over us and condemn our children and grandchildren’s generations to miserable lives of slave labour. We cannot afford to let them get away with this!
The wealthy elite are already destroying our countryside, poisoning our food, choking up our fresh air and polluting our sea in their selfish and neverending quest for money, money, and more money.
Now they’re running out of oil and other resources to profit from, they’re turning to us as human sacrifices to keep their jet-set lifestyles going. Too many people think protesting is something done by other people - people not like them. But this has now got to change. It is everyone’s duty> to stand up and take on the rich and powerful classes who want us to work 50 years of our lives to make more profits for them and their fat cat chums until we drop dead from exhaustion!
It’s time to mobilise to stop them in their tracks by all means possible.
It’s time for all of us, from whatever background, to put our differences aside and unite in battle against our real enemy - the global bankers and their political puppets!
It’s time that the people of this country - of this planet for that matter - finally sent these greedy parasites packing!
Keep up to date with news of protests and campaigns in the events section of this website.
THE authorities’ disgraceful decision on July 22 not to prosecute the police for the killing of Ian Tomlinson during the 2009 protests against the G20 global fat cats in London, despite the whole thing being captured on video, was more than just a miscarriage of justice. It also exposes very clearly the mentality of our ‘democratic’ state and its attitude towards the public - the police are nothing but hired thugs of the capitalist mafia, licensed to kill anyone who gets in their way. [STOP PRESS NEWS OF PROTEST IN LONDON ON FRIDAY JULY 30 - SEE EVENTS]
IT COULD well go down in Worthing’s history as the greatest ever victory for people power in the town.
Following on from the council’s rejection of plans for an 875-home estate at West Durrington back in March, the developers’ consortium has announced it will not be appealing against the result.
Although it could still come back with plans for housing on the green fields - which would be opposed by many - it seems that the woods themselves are now saved (hooray!) with no access road from Titnore Lane and no housing on that side of the site.
Local campaigners can hardly believe it. The Battle of Titnore Woods has been going on for the best part of a decade. It was back in December 2001 that The Porkbolter revealed a direct action campaign was being planned to save the ancient woodland from development.
The stalls, protests and petitions of the Save Titnore Woods! campaign had already become a familiar sight in Worthing long before the plucky eco-campers moved into the trees in May 2006.
All along, there were people all too quick to tell us we were wasting our time, that the housing was as good as built, but the struggle went on regardless, despite council hostility, lack of interest from local MPs and regular police intimidation (and that began long before the camp was set up!). We can’t go through it all again here, but if you go to the homepage and do a search for ‘Titnore’ you’ll get a flavour.
It’s not all rosy in West Durrington, of course. The new Tesco was built (not that it’s proved as popular as the greed merchants were hoping - shame!) and Varey Road residents are now facing the nightmare of lorries passing their bedroom windows all day and night on an access road raised 1.6 metres in the air after Worthing council continued its traditional policy of letting Tesco do whatever the pork it wants (Worthing Herald, July 15).
The truth is that the war will never be over - there will always be ruthless businessmen out to wreck the countryside and trample over people’s lives in their pursuit of wealth and there will always be so-called elected bodies whose real loyalties do not lie with the people they are supposed to serve.
But the Victory of Titnore Woods proves once and for all that it’s never a waste of time to take them on - if you’re prepared to have a go, anything is possible!
But Worthing Borough Council is literally bursting to turn public conveniences to inconvenience by closing down half a dozen of the town’s WCs, as the Worthing Herald reported on June 17 and 24.
The toilet roll of dishonour features the gents’ and ladies’ at the Pier, the Lido, the Promenade opposite the Dome, George V Avenue, Buckingham Road and Pond Lane in Durrington. It’s not even clear how much cash this cr*p idea would actually save the town. The Herald reported (June 24) that this wily wee scheme "enables a local authority to pay for public toilet facilities to be provided via local businesses in lieu [or loo in this case] of council-owned and managed public conveniences."
Sounds to us like yet another stinking scam to divert council taxpayers’ cash straight into the already-bulging pockets of Tory councillors’ close chums in the local "business community" (c/o the Charmandean Centre).
Hopefully it’s all just a flash in the pan and the plans will disappear round the U-bend of history. But if the council does go ahead, what will it do with the existing toilets?
Our fabrication correspondent Freddie Fib reports that, sensationally, they may be used as the council’s very own offices, thus freeing up the Town Hall for a Traditional Olde Sussex Retail Village of five new Tesco stores, a Subway and a McDonald’s.
The loos may be bog standard as offices go, but the idea of spending a mere penny seems quite appropriate with the cuts looming ahead. Unfounded rumour has it that the Chief Executive has his eye on the third cubicle from the left in the gents’ at the Lido, while the planning department is already looking at phasing in its move to the ladies’ on the Pier by using residents’ objections to planning applications as free toilet paper. Due to lack of space, the Council Tax Rebates department will be based underneath the Pier and only open at low tide.
Published and printed by The Porkbolter, PO Box 4144, Worthing BN14 7NZ. No copyright, no justice, no peace.
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