Student grant cash 'wasted': The week that was January 24 to 30, 1971.

Con John Dossett, a Liberal member of Barnsley Council, made his comment after a record £4m education budget had been presented to its education committee. He said that grants for further education would cost around £200,000.

He said: “I am not opposed to money going to students, but in the past 12 months I have seen more money thrown down the drain by student demonstrators who should be a responsible section of the community. We are forced into giving money to students, and if we could recover the money I feel we should do so.” Coun Dossett advocated a greater share of the budget being spent instead on nursery education.

In the meantime a conference of student leaders and the government had drawn up a report proposing a £10 a week grant increase for some students, to keep pace with the rise in the cost of living since 1965.

In Whitehall, far-reaching plans to extend home ownership by the introduction of new mortgage policies were to be announced shortly, said Minister of Housing Julian Amery. Among the new schemes was a pay-as-you-earn mortgage for young couples in which husbands with good career prospects would have repayments tied to their earnings.

Business leaders in Leeds said they were drawing up a letter to Prime Minister Edward Heath congratulating him on his firm handling of industrial relations policy. The letter was to be delivered by hand, in view of the ongoing postal strike.

In this, the second week of the first ever national stoppage by the country’s 200,000 postal workers, financial support for their effort began to trickle into their London headquarters from other trades unions, after reports that some workers, including members in Yorkshire, had already applied for grants from their union’s hardship fund. General Secretary of the Union of Postal Workers Tom Jackson addressed the executive of the Civil and Public Services Association, members of which were secretaries working for the Post Office. Some of these staff members were breaking the strike. Transport workers voted to support the action, which centred on a 13 per cent pay claim.

In foreign news, General Idi Amin seized power from President Milton Obote, the man who had led Uganda to independence from Britain in 1962. The general led a military coup while the president was out of the country attending the Commonwealth Conference in Singapore.

Amin’s troops sealed off Entebbe airport and there were reports of tanks and soldiers on the streets of the capital, Kampala. The presidential palace was said to be surrounded.

The general had been heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda for seven years, and spent most of his army career as a sergeant until he was promoted to chief of the armed forces during Dr Obote’s rule.

Elsewhere, the Shah of Iran said 10 oil-producing companies would definitely consider a shutdown of supplies to the West if talks broke down. The 10 members of the Organisation of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC), which produced around 85 per cent of the world’s oil were scheduled to meet in Teheran on February 3. The Shah rejected demands by 16 companies for a global agreement if the price was adjustable to an international commodity price index.