Censorship Ding Dong: The Divisive Witch is Dead.

The BBC looks to defy the national interest again today, insisting it will not be playing the song catapulted up the charts by the death of Margaret Thatcher.

After newspaper headlines of ‘Munchkin Fury’, ‘BBC Thatcher Song’ and the like, they’re pulling it but for a small clip, refusing to play any part in the seemingly peaceful protest and as such, probably sending sales through the stratosphere. They’ve done it before. The Sex Pistols owe a lot to censorship. Frankie said what again? Perhaps we should all just relax about the song and put a bit of perspective on the matter. ‘Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead’ can be seen as being perhaps a bit far. There are others who would argue it is not far enough. Whatever your opinion, it is less than a minute long and so begs the question, why didn’t they just say they'd play it as usual and stop it dominating the news.

What we have actually been fed is another distraction by wise old 'Auntie'. We’ve been gushed at over the Iron Lady. The lady not for turning. The woman so almighty and powerful she was ousted by her own side, detested by the other sides of the house and turned against even by the feminists. A female prime minister. Girl power, eh. There are those who will say Maggie was the greatest leader we’ve had since Churchill. She stood firm in the face of the terrorists. She took on miners who were “way out of line,” as I’ve heard said this week. She kickstarted the country…

In the interest of fairness I now get to say my bit. She was a savage. A person so intent on having her way that all else was disregarded. Never mind the men too old to ever again get a job- the industries must be closed down, one by one and with brutal impudence. Never mind the dictators she was propping up- they did a good bit of business on the side, who cares if they too would go down in the annals of tyranny. She could ride a good bit of roughshod, without seemingly any remorse for those on the other end of it and over the last week we've been fed just one line of the story- it is as if these things didn't happen. Right to buy schemes have been championed with no mention of the failure to 'restock' by housebuilding. Private sector business has been promoted so much I think the Conservatives can pull it from their adverts forever- the point has been made with no mention of the great divide these things created between the rich and the rapidly increasing poor.

Three million people unemployed is by no means a success story. Three terms in office, including a war win should leave the country in a better place, shouldn't it- not divided and ripping chunks off one another. We're feeling the pinch of the bank downfall now, they're getting loopholes to jump through. How the miners would have loved a tax break- only they'd have rather bloody paid it and had a job.

So ding dong. Battle has commenced up and down the country and with that, why shouldn’t people have the right to vote a song up the charts? A quick dance in the street is what I feel a lot of people will have wanted to do. I was briefly tempted, but for being at work in Poulton-le-Fylde, a place full of old Tories. There has been a considered attempt at glossing over the years of hurt and hate- the gushing tributes, the fawning as my father called it but there has been a name- a name so divisive it has been unspoken in many parts for twenty years, and now Voldemort is big news again.

There is grieving to be done, and they're welcome to it but a 10 Million Pound funeral has stoked the fires. Like the Jubilee, the Olympics and other great public occasions, I hope many poems are written, songs are re-recorded, and stories passed to children. Let the history books be balanced and the facts never forgotten. With the respect to her family that she gave to all of those like mine, the witch is dead I say.

Thanks for reading,
Shaun