‘Woke PC nonsense’: BBC presenter bans ‘offensive’ Christmas song ‘Fairytale of New York’, prompting social media backlash

A BBC radio presenter has caused consternation online after tweeting that he will no longer play the iconic Christmas song “Fairytale of New York,” by The Pogues, because the lyrics make him feel uncomfortable.

The song includes frontman Shane MacGowan calling his co-singer Kirsty MacColl an “old sl*t on junk,” and her retorting that he’s a “cheap, lousy f*****.” In a since-deleted tweet, BBC Radio Solent’s Alex Dyke branded the lyrics as “an offensive pile of downmarket chav bilge.”

Dyke later revealed on his radio show that he wouldn’t be playing the track this festive season. The song has become synonymous with Christmas in the UK ever since its release in 1987, but the 57-year-old DJ called time on it because he doesn’t feel “comfortable” playing it.

The censoring of the song has provoked outrage on social media with some accusing the BBC of “woke PC nonsense,” and asking“Is there anything the Snowflakes won’t ban?” Others acknowledged that the language used was offensive, but that it was “a twisted love song and they are only referring to each other.”

Elsewhere, amusing gifs were tweeted, with one person claiming any such ban won't stop them “belting it out at the top of my lungs word for word.”

In 2018, MacGowan defended the use of the word “f*****,” a word now widely accepted as a derogatory term for a gay male, insisting that it was language in-keeping with the “character” portrayed by MacColl.

She is not supposed to be a nice person… She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history and she is down on her luck and desperate.

It’s not the first time Dyke has caused controversy with his outspoken views. During one of his BBC radio shows in 2015 he revealed his dislike of women breastfeeding in public, claiming it was “unnatural” and needed to be “stopped.” Dyke was subsequently suspended from his presenter role, before being reinstated just days later.

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