The BBC Trust has rejected a complaint about Radio 1's decision to cut down Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead, which hit number 2 in the charts following the death of Margaret Thatcher, describing it as an inappropriate "celebration of death". The 74-year-old song, which first appeared in the soundtrack for the Wizard of Oz film, made a surprise chart entry in April as a form of a protest by critics of the late Conservative prime minister. Radio 1 elected to play just 7 seconds of the 51-second song, preceding it with a Newsbeat story explaining the context, following an intervention by then newly arrived BBC director general Tony Hall. A complainant to the corporation argued that playing a truncated version of just one song was a breach of the BBC's guidelines on censorship and impartiality – particularly given a song titled I'm in Love with Margaret Thatcher was played in full – and that the track itself did not carry a political message. |