BBC in death song ding-dong with Thatcher fans

UK: The BBC came under pressure on Friday to ban the Wizard of Oz song “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead” from its airwaves as it surged towards the top of the British charts following the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Opponents of the “Iron Lady” launched an Internet campaign to push the song from the much-loved film “The Wizard of Oz” to number one after the country’s first female premier died on Monday of a stroke at the age of 87.

The publicly-funded BBC, the world’s largest broadcasting organisation, has not commented yet on whether it will play the song on the radio when the weekly chart comes out on Sunday -- three days before Thatcher’s high-profile funeral.John Whittingdale, a Conservative lawmaker who chairs parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport committee, said the song should not be played.

“This is an attempt to manipulate the charts by people trying to make a political point,” he told the Daily Mail newspaper. “Most people find that offensive and deeply insensitive, and for that reason it would be better if the BBC did not play it.”

The Official Charts Company said the song was at number three on Thursday, currently closing the gap on the chart leader by 2,000 copies a day but still 12,000 behind. Britain’s right-wing Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph newspapers have led moves to have the song banned. The Mail called it an “insult to Maggie”.

The Daily Telegraph reported that new BBC chief Tony Hall, whose predecessor resigned last year following the scandal over late paedophile television host Jimmy Savile, has refused to ban the song and told staff further down the chain it is an “editorial decision”.

Songs the BBC has previously banned include “Je T’aime... Moi Non Plus” by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin (1969), “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols (1977) and “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1983).

Baroness Thatcher has proved as polarising in death as she was in life.

The state is sparing no expense on her funeral with Queen Elizabeth II set to attend the first funeral of any British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1965, and world leaders past and present on the 2,000-strong guest list.

But opponents of Thatcher, whom they accuse of destroying the British industry and society with her free-market economic policies, staged rowdy parties on the night of her death, while many Labour lawmakers boycotted a parliamentary tribute to her on Wednesday.

AFP