The BBC has been accused of “two-tier broadcasting” following its refusal to play the Sir Keir Starmer parody Freezing This Christmas despite airing a song critical of Margaret Thatcher.
The broadcaster has continually refused to play the track, which uses the melody of Lonely This Christmas, Mud’s 1974 hit, in a parody about the withdrawal of winter fuel payments.
It says its decision is “in line with what our audience expect to hear”. This is despite the song topping both the Official Sales and Downloads charts and placing 37th in the BBC’s own official chart on Friday.
Yet the BBC has no policy preventing the airing of protest or political songs and has previously played a track that spoke out against previous Conservative governments.
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In 1980, the broadcaster aired the anti-Thatcher track, Stand Down Margaret by the Beat, which called for the resignation of the then prime minister as the country battled with high rates of unemployment, crime and fear of nuclear war. The track was played on the BBC programmes The Old Grey Whistle Test and Cheggers Plays Pop, a children’s show.
Stand Down Margaret was one of The Beat’s most political songs, placing at number 22 in the charts in September 1980. Its lyrics made plain the public feeling at the time with lines such as: “Our lives seem petty in your cold grey hands/ Would you give a second thought/ Would you ever give a damn, I doubt it/ Stand down Margaret.”
The word “down” is repeated 69 times, with “war” heard 28 times.
Credit: YouTube / The Beat
Joanna Marchong, the investigations campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which runs an Axe the Tax campaign to scrap the BBC licence fee, said: “Licence fee payers will be appalled by the Beeb’s blatant bias.
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“The BBC claims to be impartial, yet they’re refusing to play Freezing This Christmas despite its chart-topping success, based on what they think listeners want.
“BBC bosses must end this two-tier broadcasting and focus on serving the public fairly, not pushing their own narrow agenda.”
Ray Stiles, the bass guitarist for Mud, who had the original Christmas song withheld from air during the pandemic over fears it could exacerbate loneliness, described “the BBC as a law unto themselves”.
“I think that’s pretty much the BBC. They’re a law unto themselves, they feed people the music they want to play…They actually banned Lonely This Christmas during the pandemic, which I kind of understood,” he said.
“But there’s a general concern of what’s been done, you know, taking away the winter fuel payments. People have subscribed to the parody of our song because it has and will affect peoples’ lives. No one likes to be cold but so many people are going to have no option.”
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Stiles added: “I guess people who make these decisions won’t be cold, they’re probably paid plenty of money and if they’re cold they just turn the heating up, it’s as simple as that.”
As with Stand Down Margaret, all proceeds from Freezing This Christmas will go to charity. So far, over £47,000 has been raised for Age UK since the release of the parody at the beginning of the month.
Sir Keir Starmer has yet to officially comment on the parody, but Dean Ager, the singer on the track who has previously claimed the BBC’s refusal to play the song is “giving them bad publicity for being so biased”, has decided to take the song to the Prime Minister, personally.
On Sunday, Ager, a function singer who does a lot of events for the elderly, is expected to travel to Parliament Square to sing his protest song.
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The BBC said: “We play a wide range of music across our stations – we don’t have specific policies on tracks or ban any songs. Decisions on what we play are always made with the relevant audiences and context in mind.”
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