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| Photo of Radio Northsea International's ship, the mv Mebo II, from ‘The RNI-Book’,
published by Hit-Publications, Zurich. |
Paul Rowley, who has made a number of award-winning programmes relating to offshore radio in the
past, has a new one being broadcast over the Christmas/New Year period on various BBC local radio stations.
Called The Radio Election, it looks back 40 years at the story of the 1970 General Election when Ted Heath's
victory for the Conservatives took the nation by surprise. Most opinion polls had predicted a win for the Labour Prime
Minister Harold Wilson. At the time many commentators put Labour's defeat down to an unexpectedly bad set of trade
figures just before polling day. Others claimed that voters were grumpy after England's footballers had lost 3-2
to West Germany in the World Cup the previous weekend. But it was also the first time that teenagers had been able to vote,
with the voting age reduced from 21 to 18. For five and a half million people born after the Second World War, this was
their first opportunity to have a say in a General Election.
During the election campaign Radio Northsea International changed its name to that of Britain's first pirate station,
Radio Caroline, and urged its listeners to support the Conservatives. The party had pledged to introduce legalised commercial
radio if elected. In 1967 Harold Wilson had introduced the Marine Offences Act which outlawed the offshore stations, much
to the annoyance of millions of young people who now had the vote. Was this their revenge?
Labour was sufficiently worried by the offshore broadcasts that it ordered them to be jammed but RNI/Caroline could
still be heard across much of Britain. In the five days leading up to polling day, the DJs constantly urged listeners to
“vote Conservative and fight for free radio”. Thousands of them turned out at a rally in Hyde Park, central London.
Paul Rowley's programme investigates if these broadcasts had any bearing on the outcome of the election in which many
Labour-held seats in the south-east and east of England, where offshore radio enjoyed a strong signal, were won
by the Tories.
The Radio Election can be heard on these stations:
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