Fellow journalism student John Fernandez posted a Facebook status asking what people thought about Radio 1 deciding not to play ‘Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead’ on its Chart Show, and instead play a snippet of the song + a news piece. I’ve been tossing around my thoughts about this for a couple of days, and the following is what I wrote. I think it’s a fair argument on how it’s the right decision. Feel free to disagree!

“Each time I think about it I have a different opinion. On the one hand, the BBC are supposed to reflect the views of the population. On the other hand, no matter what you think about Thatcher, playing a song which is where it is as a result of the celebration of her death seems incredibly insensitive.

“I mean, you can’t imagine the presenter saying ‘And now, at number one, it’s the song you’ve all been going crazy over, it’s Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!’ There’s no way to sensitively do that. So, playing a clip of the song accompanied by a news story is a good compromise. It acknowledges what’s happened, but doesn’t go as far as to condone what is a fairly childish act for a relatively crap song.”