Tories increase stranglehold on broadcasting

MITCHELL TH TO RIES tightened their stranglehold on the BBC by the appointment of Professor Sir Michael Swann as the new chairman.

Swann, the vice-chancellor of Edinburgh University, is a noted right-winger. In the first interview since he took over, Swann said with accustomed superiority that his students thought that he was *perceptibly to the right of Genghis Khan'.

This may or may not be so. What is known, however, is that Swann has contributed to the Black Papers on education, a series of tracts arguing for the preservation of universities for a privileged élite.

His article was entitled 'Student Trouble-Edinburgh and Beyond'. The gist of his argument was that 'authority' had to exert itself over those who challenged it. It was the responsibility of those in power to stand up against those who tried to undermine them.

He has also delivered a number of lectures to staff and students along these general lines. One was called "Flight from Reason' and ano in E Nor New BBC chief a Black Paper professor in June this year he ade ther veiled attack on stu ents i diatribe entitled 'Events and 1-Events'.

Jail for man who wanted to kill immigrants A MAN described as a 'kinı IAN described as a 'kind, generous, loving | I' has been sentenced to a year's jail for chai band' has been sentenced to under the Race Relations Act.

James Hamilton, garage attendant, appeared in Leeds Crown Court charged with offences likely to stir up racial hatred.

He was found guilty of publishing written matter which was threatening, guilty of distributing written matter which was threatening and guilty of one charge of possessing an offensive weapon. confrontations in the universitv He seemed to think It was Hamilton gangs to people. In this speech speech he said that way students 'used In this speech he said that confrontations in the university were engineered by people whose attitude to authority was immature. And he criticized the Edinburgh Student Representative Council for too often being dominated by activists. In other words, good old Tory stuff! They say the same about the dockers, the miners, the engineers, etc., etc.

Since 1968 Swann has been in two big disputes with the student body. When the students wanted to install a contraceptive machine, the rector, Malcolm Muggeridge, resigned in a fit of absurd anger. In the ensuing fracas Swann clearly came down on Muggeridge's side.

In 1970 students began to ask if the university had any financial interests in the racist republic of South Africa. The general council issued a public statement denying that it held shares in South African companies. However, students were later able to prove that the university had a £500,000 investment there.

The authorities were then forced to admit that their first statement was 'misleading'.

During these uproars Swann frequently showed anger at the loving husfor charges Detective Inspector Peter Walker said Hamilton had 12 previous convictions involving 19 offences. Nine of these were offences of violence and three were offences of possessing offensive weapons.

said in court that wanted to train white exterminate coloured Mr Barry Mortimer, QC, deending Hamilton, told the jury: 'He is taking no different stand than a Powellite stand. Whether you disagree heartily with it or agree heartily, he is entitled to take that stand.' In evidence Hamilton said that his White Alliance Party aimed to get the three major parties to accept that Britain had a race problem.

On the opening day of the trial it had been stated that Hamilton had urged Hell's Angels, skinheads and Crombie boys to band together to stir up hatred against Asians and to fight them. He denied any intention to stir up • hatred, but said he believed that immigration should be stopped and the Race Relations Act abolished.

Summing up, Mr Justice Wrangham said: 'There is a political aspect to this case which is closely bound up with the case made against Hamilton.

'There are differing political opinions on immigration and both were legitimate opinions.

'We are not in the stage where we commit a criminal offence if we disagree with the government's policy of the day.' AIRLINE - workers at Heathrow airport, London, staged a lightning strike yesterday because they claimed their firm had told …a young colleague to get a haircut. Management staff left their desks to shift cargo after the unofficial walk-out from freight carriers, Seaboard World Airlines. way students used the media'. He seemed to think that students received too much coverage by Press and television.

This is a brief biography of the man Heath has selected to control the state-run radio and television network.

He replaces Lord Hill, a former Tory Minister. At a Press conference in London Swann said that a newspaper had said he nord be itoritation peris is '. This is right, he said.

Another report said he would be 'very much in the back seat'. Swann disthissed this view.

'I am not sure this is my style.

I want to be in the front seat alongside the Director-General who will be doing the driving. I and the board of governors will be doing the map reading deciding where we are going. It will be our responsibility planning where we will go.' A measure of where the BBC will go can be gauged from the fact that the first telegram of congratulations he received was from Mrs Mary Whitehouse, the former Moral-Rearmer and nOW head of the Festival of Light brigade.

A HUNDRED people will lose their jobs when a cotton mill closes in Stockport, Cheshire, early next year, it was announced yesterday. 'A few of them might be willing to go to one of our mills in Yorkshire', said a spokesman for Carpets International, which owns Stockport's Spur Doubling Mill. 'That's the nearest other mill in the group'. The Stockport mill has produced cotton chain yarn to back carpets made in other group mills for the last 18 years.

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Nan 'esS Amount enclosed £ SLI LECTURES BARNSLEY Sunday December 17 Revolutlonary theory and Marxist Party RED LION HOTEL (Worsborough) 8 р.п Lectures given (SLL Central Committee)