Ding Dong! A New Hit Song

As if the BBC didn’t have enough high-profile problems on its plate with the fall-out from the Savile affair, it’s lately been in a stew over whether it should play the record charting at No.2 at press time.

“Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” a song from the “Wizard Of Oz” that was originally sung by Judy Garland, has zoomed up the chart as anti-Margaret Thatcher campaigners ran an internet campaign to persuade people to buy it – to celebrate the former prime minister’s death.

About 35,000 people are estimated to have bought or downloaded the song in the week after her passing.

The BBC hasn’t been playing the record but the Beeb’s director general, Lord Hall, who’s only been in his £450,000 per year post for a week, was faced with what to do when it came to The Official Chart Show to air on Radio One April 14.

“This is a serious test for Tony Hall,” said Sir Gerald Howarth MP, days before the chart rundown show.

“This is the state broadcaster and it has a duty to show good taste and decency. It is still a tradition in our country that we respect the dead.”

Howarth, who’s been a Tory MP since 1983, was a friend of Thatcher’s and was recently appointed chairman of the Thatcherite campaign group Conservative Way Forward.

He said people were entitled to consider and debate her record in office, but for the state broadcaster to play the song would be a dereliction of its duty and potentially a violation of its charter.

Former Conservative party treasurer Lord McAlpine, a long-standing friend of Baroness Thatcher, said he was “absolutely astounded” that the BBC was even thinking about playing the song.

Conservative supporters, including such papers as the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, demanded that BBC refuse to play the song.

Lord Hall was faced with the choice of playing the song, as the Radio One does with all the Top 40 songs on its chart show, not playing the song or airing a seconds-long snatch of it.

Earlier in the week he’d said he was leaning towards playing a few seconds of it, but pointed out that he may lean another way when the actual chart positions were known.

When the chart show aired, it became clear that Lord Hall had stuck with his first decision. The Beeb played about five seconds of “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead.”

Another song called “I’m In Love With Margaret Thatcher,” which reached No.27 in the chart, was played in full.