[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Saph

whats the pro song?

Something about masturbating on Thatcher.

[Saph]

ooh :s

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Saph

whats the pro song?

I'm in love with Margaret Thatcher by the Notsensibles, it charted at 35..

[Jack_]

It's interesting to see Thatcherites supporting a publicly funded and supposed neutral media institution breaking its own code of conduct by allowing a pro-Thatcher campaign song to be played but not an anti-Thatcher song. I could understand banning both songs, or playing both, but one and not the other is indefensible. The right would love for the BBC to turn into another platform to champion their ideology, so I guess it's unsurprising to see people trying to justify such blatant bias on this issue. Saddening because of the potential repercussions, but unsurprising all the same.

On a separate note, Charlie Brooker has written his weekly Guardian column about this issue, it's a gem.

That's yer Thatcher Ding Dong ding-dong: I blame the BBC

Would the Iron Lady get the irony?

This week there has been an online campaign to get Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead into the charts. Photograph: MGM/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
Last Monday, one of the most iconic figures of the 1980s passed away. Whatever your viewpoint, in terms of strength, drive, and unrelenting sense of purpose, we're unlikely to see their like again. This was someone who knew what they wanted and saw it through to the bitter end, dammit, no matter how shrill the outraged screaming. To admirers, an anti-establishment hero; to detractors, a subhuman hate figure who heartlessly devastated entire communities: a monster to dress up as for your next Halloween party.

Yes, Richard Brooker, the former English stuntman who played the ice-hockey-masked killer Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13th movies, died last Monday. Maggie Thatcher died the same day, triggering a nationwide outpouring of grief as the TV schedules filled with boring tribute shows. The homages weren't limited to TV screens however. Git-haired One Direction sex minnow Harry Styles hastily tweeted an RIP, prompting many of his fans to wonder aloud just who this "Thatcher" person was, much to the amusement of onlookers not quite smart enough to understand how time works. It's unfair to berate One Direction fans for their Maggie ignorance: for one thing, they're about 10 minutes old. They've only just learned to grasp objects. When I was their age I didn't know who Alec Douglas-Home was. Still don't, come to think of it. Just had to Google him. Woah – sexy!

Incidentally, Maggie herself was a huge One Direction fan – by which I mean she wasn't for turning!!!! LOL OMG HaHa #AceGag

Still, not everyone has shown as much respect as the Dickensian chimney-sweep pin-up Master Styles. Within hours of the news breaking, "celebration" parties were attended by people so utterly committed to humanitarian causes that they're compelled to dance in the street when an old lady dies. Throughout the 80s I hated Thatcher, partly for selfish reasons. I figured that, thanks to the likes of her, the planet was about to receive a mushroom-cloud makeover, and I've never been that keen on burning to death unexpectedly on a school day. I found her almost too frightening to watch on TV. She seemed to display such cold disregard for those crushed by the wheels of her personal brand of progress, it was hard to believe she fully understood what human beings are, let alone cared about them.

Maybe, being the first female prime minister, she was consciously subverting cliche by being as masculine as possible. It's like Barack Obama using flying robots to bomb brown folk overseas – critics chuckle and say: "Man, I didn't expect the first black president to do THAT!"

Millions sang for joy when the Tories themselves kicked Thatcher out of No 10 back in 1990. Breaking into song again 23 years later because she's died of a stroke following years of debilitating illness and seclusion strikes me as futile and a bit sad – not unlike dancing into the British Museum to shake your fist at a mummy. But any active celebrations seemed fairly isolated until the press noticed an online campaign to get Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead into the charts. They were so outraged that they decided to promote it on their front pages, thereby causing a further surge in sales, which they then pretended was a crisis for the BBC, on the basis that Radio 1's weekly chart show – a factual record of what music the British public has been buying – might be forced to play the tune.

Pardon me for swearing, but in the spirit of robust free speech, not to mention accuracy, what the papers have perpetrated there is what Viz magazine would describe as "a *****'s trick". I'd think of a less offensive description, but there isn't one. I simply can't believe they've forced me to use such vile language in an article about our late premier. And by "they", I mean the BBC: officially to blame for anything bad since the eradication of cholera. On last week's Question Time, Charles Moore berated the BBC for even mentioning the Ding Dong! campaign on air, apparently unaware that, by doing so, he was himself promoting it on the BBC, which means he either a) believes himself to be invisible and inaudible, or b) had missed a golden chance to take another opportunistic pop at them before drawing his next breath. (Mind you, he didn't look as dumb as David Blunkett – also on the panel – who gleefully recounted dialogue from a famous Spitting Image sketch starring the Thatcher puppet that he'd somehow mistaken for a real-life quote from the woman herself. He's lucky Dimbleby cut him off before he went on to claim she'd had someone's arm up her arse at the time.)

Many of the obituaries have noted that Thatcher had little sense of humour, although we don't know how advanced her sense of irony was (being made of iron, she was quite irony herself). So we don't know how she'd react to the loudest squabble in the aftermath of her death being a surreal fight over an old musical number repurposed as an anti-tribute to her memory – a protest people actually have to pay to take part in. She'd laugh at that aspect, at the very least. It's hard to believe she'd turn in her grave. After all, as she told us herself, the lady's not for turning!!!! LOL OMG haha #AceGag #WellDone #Legend #JobDone #SigningOff #SeeYa

The Guardian

****ing brilliant. One of his best