As Much As The Right Wing Wants Us To Love Margaret Thatcher ... 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead' Song Goes To The Top Of The British Music Charts ...UPDATE Liverpool Stadium Cheers Her Death
Following her death on April 8, the bitter row over Margaret Thatcher’s legacy continues – with a campaign to get the song “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead”, from the movie The Wizard of Oz, to number 1 on the U.K. music charts.
The former Prime Minister, whose time in office was marked by battles with workers’ unions and the privatization of key industries, continues to be a divisive figure in Britain. On the day of her death a number of street parties were held throughout the U.K., some of which turned violent.
Encouraged by an anti-Thatcher Facebook campaign, people are now downloading the 1939 song, sung by Judy Garland and the cast of the movie, in an attempt to make it the top-selling track of the week.
The activist Adam Jung, writing for the Huffington Post, called it “a creative way for Brits to correct the national narrative” of Thatcher’s time in office.
But the music journalist Neil McCormick, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said that the campaign would make the song “the most inappropriate and gratuitously offensive number one hit single ever.” And former Conservative Member of Parliament Jonathan Aitken told a British TV show: ‘People who have respect for Lady Thatcher and her views will not find this anything other than a distasteful affair,” adding that it was ”a pretty feeble form of protest.”
But distasteful and feeble as it may be, the campaign is causing a significant headache for the BBC. By Friday, “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead had hit number 1 in the U.K. iTunes store, and number 3 on the Official U.K. Chart. BBC Radio 1 ordinarily does a Top 40 countdown on Sunday afternoons, in which every song from number 40 down to number 1 is played in its entirety. But on Friday the broadcaster announced that the song won’t be played in full. Instead, a short clip of will be played as part of a news bulletin explaining that the track has reached that place in the chart. It called the decision ”a difficult compromise.”
Meanwhile, a large anti-Thatcher protest in London’s Trafalgar Square is being organized this weekend by a coalition of activists, anarchists and former coal miners, reports the Guardian. And the Sun reports that a London police officer resigned from his post after it was revealed that he had made a number of offensive tweets celebrating Thatcher’s death. Newsweek
UPDATE: Tens of thousands of Liverpool fans break into chant 'When Maggie Thatcher Dies' ... (must see!)
