`LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!`

BORN FREE or born slaves to Big Brother plc? Which start in life would you prefer for your children or your children's children? This is the question which ought to be urgently addressed NOW by parents everywhere and by anyone else who cares about the future liberty and dignity of the human race. Because sinister moves are already being made to ensure that the chains of commerce, greed and state control are clamped on to innocent babes the moment they emerge from their mother's wombs. Electronic tagging of children, the theft of their free time, Big Brother databases of their details from birth, a shift from proper education to business-controlled training for low-paid slave-jobs - we show here how all these factors are combining to pose a major threat to youngsters' health and happiness, a threat that we have a responsibility to resist ...

ELECTRONIC TAGGING of young children is the latest assault on freedom being launched at youngsters. The sinister project has been piloted by Tesco at its hypermarket creches, revealed The Observer on August 1. Said the report: "The tag, likely to be bought by schools, nurseries and play-schemes, combines anti-shoplifting technology with surveillance equipment used to track criminals from prison." Of course, the justification for the move is to "protect" children from all those evil monsters we hear about on TV and read about in the papers all the time - exactly the same excuse used to sell 24-hour Big Brother CCTV surveillance on our streets. But the real motive is nothing but control. Today it is tags. Tomorrow it will be ever-so convenient microchips inserted behind the ear, as already used on pets. Parents who don't go along with it will be considered irresponsible. Schools' and playgroups' insurance policies will one day specify children must be microchipped. And when those children grow up, the state will have a whole generation of the adult population exactly where it wants it - under total control.

The child tagging scheme has already been condemned by child welfare groups, reported The Observer, as marking "the end of carefree childhood for the next generation and a new era of paranoia." This same paranoia was stoked further a few days later with the launch of a new campaign by the NSPCC. Revealed the Worthing Advertiser on August 11: "The charity is calling on people in the Worthing area to make a special effort to ensure all children are safe from harm outdoors this summer. As millions of children look forward to playing at parks, beaches and streets, many parents worry about the risks to their children from strangers." The report quotes NSPCC chief executive Jim Harding as declaring: "The greatest fear of parents is that their child will be abducted and murdered by a stranger." So why does he pander to that fear, when he himself goes on to admit that most murdered children are killed by someone they know? And why not point out that while six children are killed by strangers in the UK each year, more than 200 are killed on the roads, the latest tragic victim being five-year-old Ben Cron of Angmering on August 4.

SOME 500 PUPILS at a London school walked out because of plans to make it part of a new business-led Education Action Zone (Big Issue, August 2-8). They say the EAZs are "getting us ready for a lifetime's work in McDonalds". Indeed, the low-paying burger giant is already involved in running several EAZs, along with the likes of Tate & Lyle, Kellogg's, Shell and British Telecom. Warned a National Union of Teachers spokesman: "Heavy business involvement in schools will create a very different kind of education. It will be about churning out the type of people major employers want working for them rather than fully-rounded individuals."

REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE to break up from school for the summer? The sun was shining, the exams were out of the way and ahead lay six endless weeks of space, spare time and freedom. Well, there's no room for any of that in Tony Blair's Business Britain and moves are afoot to scrap the long holidays by moving to a five-term system. This suits Blair's money-fixated mates in two ways. First, it makes it easier for mums to hold down a job throughout the summer, providing more cheap labour. Secondly, it stops children from getting a taste for time to call their own, an outmoded sense of liberty that can only be an obstacle to their eventual role as wage slaves to the ever-greedier corporate machine of the new millennium.

BABIES now have to have their own passports to travel and will soon also be allocated National Insurance numbers at birth. Meanwhile, CCTV cameras are creeping into many schools. So much for free born English folk ...

WITH the National Curriculum and school performance tables meaning constant exams and homework at increasingly early ages, children's schooldays are becoming far too pressurised. More and more parents are taking up their right to educate at home. Contact Education Otherwise or Choice in Education for more information.

`THE MAYORS AND THE MASONS`

NO news yet on whether 1998-9 Mayor David Chapman wants to join our Register of Non-Masons for Worthing. But we have been passed some interesting articles from the Worthing Herald dating back ten years. In one of them (November 3, 1989) councillors revealed they had seen secret masonic handshakes used in the council chamber and among the nine named as Masons were recent Lib Dem Mayor Herbie Golds. Current mayor Brian McLuskie was identified as a non-Mason, along with Bob Clare, Bert Dockerty and others. Interestingly, chief executive Michael Ball, still in the post today, denied being a Mason "after evading the question and taking more than two hours to consider his answer."

`CURSE OF POLITICAL ANIMALS`

SEVENTY years of hard work to help animals in Worthing could be brought to a sad end by a pathetic bunch of politicians. That is the warning from Judi Walker, who recently quit from the Worthing Animal Clinic Committee as a trustee and as the Fundraising Chairman. She told The Pork-Bolter that the committee is packed full of party hacks from the Liberal Democrats who are just not organising enough fund-raising activities to keep the Newland Road clinic alive and kicking into the new millennium. She said: They haven't got a clue. That place is going to collapse before the end of the year!" Judi told us how she had put a lot of work into raising funds for the clinic, but "I have finally had enough of the way the committee is running the place and the way it has treated members of staff." She has particularly poignant questions to ask about the way new committee members were elected at the AGM in May this year an how Liberal Democrat John Rose came to succeed his Lib Dem chum and former Mayor Herbie Golds as chairman.

`Porky Pie’s Top Tip of the Month!`

HOW TO DISCOVER A POLITICIAN WHO GENUINELY HAS THE INTERESTS OF ORDINARY PEOPLE AT HEART (You must be joking!)

`MOTORMANIA AND THE ROAD TO RUIN`

MORE and more Worthing people are getting fed up with the paralysing car culture that is eroding our communities and lowering the quality of all our lives. The latest to speak out for a sane alternative were four intensive care doctors at Worthing Hospital. They wrote to the Worthing Herald (Aug 26) calling for the council to urgently take some action on introducing cycle lanes, promised for so long but never forthcoming. Dr Sean Anderson, Dr David Uncles, Dr Nicholas Lavies and Dr Tony Williams also called for advanced stop lines at traffic lights, contra-flow cycle lanes in one-way streets and cycle gates. But they added: "It is our sad conclusion the political will does not exist to make these changes happen. In the meantime we will continue to make the expensive provision for the improvements of our trauma services, for the next cyclists who become victims on the streets of Worthing." The Government's latest response to the dangers facing cyclists on the roads is to introduce £20 spot-fines for cycling on pavements. Very helpful.

Meanwhile, West Sussex County Council also revealed its anti-people/pro-traffic bias when it effectively scuppered plans for a street party in Marlowe Road, Broadwater, by insisting that residents take out £10 million public liability insurance cover! A resident told the Worthing Herald (Aug 19): "I'm not surprised there's no public spirit and people cannot be bothered to do things like this." Perhaps other partying residents might now consider reclaiming the streets without bothering to ask the permission of the killjoy council!

Roads have killed more people in the last 100 years or so than both World Wars, and yet still the forces of greed and profit want to build more. One of the worst offenders locally is the West Sussex Economic Forum, chaired by Lord Young, an unelected cabinet minister under Mrs Thatcher. Its idea of "sustainable development" includes the statement that "road improvements in the Worthing, Arundel and Chichester area will be necessary through either public or private (road tolling means)." They mean an A27 motorway. What's a few more hundred deaths and a desecrated South Downs for the sake of Progress?

`POETRY CORNER`

The Bureaucrats
They appeared from out of nowhere
As if from time and space
They brought with them supreme power
And used it well a-pace

The innocents protested
As the world around them changed
But their cries made little difference
As their lives were re-arranged

The faceless ones gave no name
And although the people tried
To find out who had sent them
Their plans were all denied

Then at last when chaos reigned
And the foul deeds all were done
The faceless ones went their way
As un-seen they had come
Artisan

`PRIVATISED LANDLORD GETTING NASTY`

DON'T say we didn't warn you! Things are getting worse and worse for tenants of Worthing's privatised council housing - even more quickly than we'd have imagined. We reported last month how they were being pressured to sign a new tenancy agreement, to become assured rather than secure tenants, and thus easier to evict. Now, lo and behold, Worthing Homes Ltd has announced that it is going to start prosecuting and then evicting people who've signed their rights away and have got behind with the rent. Can this be the same cuddly, caring new landlord the tenants were begged to vote for in the pre-privatisation propaganda?

`IS THERE A COPPER AFTER YOUR CUPPA?`

THE success of the June 18 Carnival Against Capitalism has inevitably prompted all sorts of absurd witch-hunting propaganda in the business-worshipping media, plus threatening noises from the State about making sure that nobody is ever able to protest against their system to such good effect again. In particular the police have promised "long term attrition" of groups involved in the joyful and empowering day out in the City of London. One of the groups listed in Evading Standards, the mock Evening Standard distributed on the day, was Worthing Anarchist Teapot, and they tell us they are a little concerned about what they can now expect in the way of "attrition" from the powers that be. Will suspiciously flat-footed looking individuals in civilian clothes sneak up to their town centre stalls every Saturday and, one by one, steal all their teabags? Will police spies infiltrate the organisation and deliberately serve up undrinkable cuppas to undermine their popularity with the public? We promise to keep you updated.

`PORK-SCRATCHINGS`

WE think we can shed some light on the mysterious delay in demolishing Teville Gate and building the new big bucks cinema complex (Worthing Guardian, August 27). It seems the market for multiplex cinemas has now been saturated. Operators are pulling out right, left and centre and Worthing's own multipox could also fall victim. Explained a commentator in Property Week (July 2): "Cinema operators ran around like blue-arsed flies trying to get sites everywhere five years ago. Deals were made on the presumption that viewing figures would carry on rising - they didn't - so the market was bound to plateau at some stage. * * * WEIRD goings-on at Dagenham Motors in East Worthing. John Savage of Meadow Crescent tells us that after long-suffering residents complained about a noisy extractor at the firm's site, two Worthing council environmental health officers turned up to do a noise test, which apparently showed decibel levels were indeed well over the limit and definitely a nuisance. However, John was later told the pair had somehow contrived to "press a wrong button" so the result was "not correct". And the council is strangely unwilling to carry out the test again to find the correct result. What can all this mean? * * * ALL the years of abject grovelling at the feet of Daewoo by Worthing Borough Council may go to waste. The Korean car giant is experiencing what the Financial Times (August 9) called "severe financial problems" and faces collapse or nationalisation by its domestic government. It might not be around in Worthing for long. * * * PRIVATISATION continues to run riot under New Labour, with the cells at Worthing police station next in line (though now, of course, they'll be know as the custody suite - very upmarket!). Is it justice that some businessman will be making a profit out of locking people up for the night? * * * THE Organic Vegetable Box Scheme from Ashurst Organics in Plumpton, East Sussex is really catching on in Worthing. Each box costs £6.50 and is delivered to a local drop-off point on Wednesdays. Eggs and bread are also available. Contact Don on 01903-217472 or the farm direct on 01273-891219. * * * FREE video nights upstairs at Paiges Bar on Worthing seafront are still being held on the first Tuesday of each month, at 7.30pm, by worthing.eco-action, an umbrella group for local campaigners. Next dates are September 7, then October 5, when there will be a video and talk on the campaign against Nestle and their insidious attempts to flog the whole world's mothers their baby milk products, when breast milk is free, natural and healthy. * * * SICK to death of all that junk mail landing on your doorstep? Try writing off to the Telephone and Mailing Preference Service, Freepost 22, London, W1E 7EZ. They will send you a form to fill in which is supposed to stop most junk mail coming to you for the next five years.

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Printed and published by The Pork-Bolter, PO Box 4144, Worthing BN14 7NZ. No copyright coz information is freedom, innit?

WARNING: NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN

HM Government advises that it could be illegal to allow children to read this unauthorised publication as they may thereby come into contact with harmful and addictive concepts such as liberty, self-reliance and the questioning of authority. Parents are reminded that all children born in the UK are automatically subjects of, and thereby wholly the property of, The Crown. As such, they should enter the adult world fully aware that outmoded notions of happiness and self-fulfillment are selfish and irresponsible and must be sacrificed in the interests of stable Government, economic growth and nice foreign holidays for greedy fat businessmen.

and finally ... DON'T BELIEVE A WORD THEY TELL YOU!