Election Payback
Then, five days before the General Election, Radio North Sea International was suddenly back on air as Radio Caroline International, after coming to an arrangement with the founder of Radio Caroline to use its name to fight back against the Labour government in the run up to the election.
They went large with their campaign, riding ‘Free Radio’ buses through London with messages denouncing the jamming, getting fans to distribute leaflets raising awareness of what they saw as unlawful censorship, and targeting key marginal constituencies in London and the South East.
Radio Caroline International broadcast non-stop anti-Labour propaganda, and – as you can hear in this song spoofing the Dad’s Army theme tune – it’s clear they blamed Stonehouse as much as Wilson for the jamming, singing the line: ‘Mr Stonehouse starts to jam at 5.21, when he goes home at 2AM his dirty work is done’:
Two days before the election, Wilson’s government authorised the use of the most powerful transmitter in Europe – kept for national emergencies – to continue jamming the radio station.
Using the name Radio Caroline International apparently did the job: teenagers whose beloved pirate radio had been taken away from them in 1967 were now eighteen and allowed to vote for the first time, and many of these marginal southern seats were surprising Conservative gains. Despite being 12% ahead in some polls, Labour lost the election and the Conservatives ended up with a 30-seat majority.
The Beginning of the End For Stonehouse?
As Stonehouse shows, this election defeat was a turning point for John Stonehouse, as he fell from Wilson’s good books and was booted out of the Shadow Cabinet. In fact, this really was where his fall from grace started in earnest, setting off a series of events that make him one of the unluckiest men in politics. He’s no longer useful as a spy, his businesses start to suffer, his influence fades, and the walls start closing in. It’s only then that he starts to get desperate. Perhaps if he’d decided against jamming Radio North Sea International, he’d never have ended up faking his own death? We’ll never know for sure, but it’s a fascinating story.
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