Following on from the Dong Dong The Witch is Dead malarkey: now it appears that the head of the BBC pop music channel (BBC Radio 1) has decided that only a few seconds of the song should be played on tomorrow's Chart Show, prefaced with an explanation by 'a journalist' (which one?), because to play the track itself would be disrespectful.

This same man is not sure if he would or would not let them play the full track of I'm In Love with Margaret Thatcher, should this make it high enough up the charts to be considered. It's not censorship, he insists. And what's more, he says he 'referred up'. In BBC-speak this means he asked the most senior management what they thought: specifically, he asked the new Director General, Tony Hall, who has been in post a week.

Tony Hall was brought in to replace George Entwistle, who had to resign 54 days into his tenure of the post because of the awful handling by BBC management of a news report into the sexual predator, celebrity Jimmy Saville.

Clearly, BBC Directors General cannot win. The Corporation is funded by a licence fee (a tax, effectively) that everyone who owns a colour TV set has to pay, whether or not they watch BBC programmes. It is extremely good value for money, because for your annual £145.50 you get numerous TV and radio chanels, the catch-up BBC iPlayer and so on and so on.

But the VfM isn't the point. Many people who only watch cable, for example, or say they do, ask why they should pay for a service they don't use. To which the answer is that the public service remit of the BBC is what protects it (and the public) from lax journalism (ahem), and partisan broadcasting of the sort one sees in the USA...Fox News, for example. Also that the BBC sets the standard for good programmes of every sort...etc etc.

But the playing of a song in advance of Margaret Thatcher's funeral, due to be held on Wednesday, is highly partisan - whichever song they play. To play one, and not the other, would be awful. To play neither or play both in their entirety would make more sense. Both sets of partisans will then cry foul. The DG, meanwhile, newly in his job which he has said he relishes, has to have an eye on the renewal of the BBC Charter...decided by Government, without which the Corporation cannot continue in the way it has. He, not surprisngly (though I think it's a shame) agreed on the proposal to play only a few seconds of Ding Dong...WIll he regret that one day, or look back on his decision with satisfaction?