Via Evening Standard:

Protest song Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead, hijacked to mock Margaret Thatcher’s death, is set to hit No 1 this weekend as the BBC dithers over whether to play it on Radio 1.

While friends of Britain’s first woman prime minister voiced disgust at a Left-wing campaign to push it up the charts, the question of whether it deserved BBC airtime divided MPs and commentators.

An online poll for the Radio Times found 89 per cent  of people believed the song, originally written for the  1939 musical The Wizard Of Oz, should be played. David Cameron’s spokesman said he regarded the matter with “personal distaste” but the decision whether to ban the  song or not was “a matter for the BBC”.

Deputy Premier Nick Clegg’s office said he too believed that it would be inappropriate for politicians to tell the BBC what it should or should not play. But Ukip leader Nigel Farage, an avowed supporter of Lady Thatcher, declared that the song should be aired as a matter of free speech.

“If you suppress things then you make them popular, so play the bloody thing,” he said. “If you ban it, then it will be No 1 for weeks. Personally I think the behaviour of these yobs, most of whom weren’t even born when Lady Thatcher was in power — is horrible, offensive and disgusting.”

The song, celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the East in the Judy Garland musical, has risen to No 1 in the iTunes chart and No 4 in the official charts after a Facebook campaign by anti-Thatcher protesters.