Whole Truth Coalition

They creep around in the dark spreading misery, rumour and secrets from inside Westminster.

Even so, paperboys and girls are hardly likely to pose a threat to national security.

One local council, however, thought it necessary to use swingeing anti-terror laws against them.

Cambridgeshire County Council used the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on eight paperboys thought to be working without permits.

It sent undercover council officers to lurk outside a Spar in the village of Melbourn and take notes on the movements of the boys.

The evidence was used in a criminal prosecution of the shop’s owners for employing five of the boys without the correct documentation.

Cambridgeshire’s approach is just the latest example of local authorities using the RIPA for minor misdemeanours.

Such activities have been likened to those of the Stasi, the East German secret police.

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‘A U.S. health centre has sparked outrage by offering Christmas gift certificates that can be used to pay for an abortion. The Planned Parenthood clinic says the gift cards can be used for  “services”  or the recipient’s choice of “birth control method”. The chain of clinics offer a variety of health services, including birth control and terminations. The gift certificates, which can be used at almost 100 clinics in the state of  Indiana, are being made available at their walk in centres and from a website.’

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When police raided Tory MP Damian Green’s home, they ‘sheepishly’ asked whether children were present before ransacking it. His wife assumed they were being polite. But, under sinister new guidelines, officers must assess all children they encounter – including while ‘searching premises’ – for a police database called MERLIN.

This, in turn, feeds into a giant new Whitehall database on Britain’s children, Contact Point, which goes live nationally in January.

The Tories have vowed to scrap it, arguing that it threatens family privacy and children’s safety. But civil liberties campaigners say we must resist it now, before it is too late.

Since April 1, hundreds of thousands of State employees, from police to teachers, youth and nursery workers, social workers and sports coaches, have been entitled to interrogate children aged up to 19, using the ‘Common Assessment Framework’ (CAF), a creepy, eight-page, 60-section questionnaire.

CAF includes eyewateringly intimate questions about children’s sexual behaviour, their family’s structure, culture and religion, their views on ‘discrimination’, their friends, secret fears, feelings and family income, plus ‘any serious difficulties in their parents’ relationship’.

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‘Passengers at London’s Stansted Airport are facing a morning of chaos after climate change protesters forced their way into a secure area, causing the complete closure of the runway. The protest, by 54 campaigners, saw demonstrators occupying a runway and taxi area which had been closed for maintenance work at around 3am.’

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Traditional subjects such as history, geography and religious studies will be removed from the primary school curriculum and merged into a “human, social and environmental” learning programme as part of a series of radical education reforms.

Under the plans, information technology classes would be given as much prominence as literacy and numeracy, and foreign languages would be taught in tandem with English.

The reforms are the most sweeping for 20 years and aim to slim down the curriculum so that younger children can be taught fewer subjects in greater depth.

Sir Jim Rose, author of the interim report to be published today by the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, said that the changes were aimed at producing a curriculum for the 21st century. His proposals are to undergo further consultation but are understood to have the backing of the Government.

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‘A senior police officer has accused former Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair of putting his force ‘in the pocket of New Labour’. Tarique Ghaffur said that Sir Ian had politicised his organisation and said he was glad that his former boss had lost his job. Assistant Commissioner Ghaffur - who has been embroiled in his own controversy over his tribunal claim against the Met for racism - also said that Sir Ian had manipulated the cash-for-honours inquiry into alleged Labour corruption in order to win leverage in the Home Office.’

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‘Britain could be signed up to a controversial European Union Constitution within a year, it has emerged. Ireland  -  which derailed the so-called Lisbon Treaty when voters rejected it in June  -  has been forced into holding a second referendum on the agreement. One diplomat said: ‘There is still some tweaking to do, but there is an understanding.’ Critics say that the Treaty is almost identical to the EU Constitution, rejected by the French and Dutch in 2005.’

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