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Politics

03rd Jun 2017

WATCH: Jake Painter says the BBC asked him “not to go too heavy on Tories”

Captain Ska's Jake Painter on Victoria Derbyshire

Wil Jones

Painter’s band Captain Ska reached the top ten with anti-Theresa May protest song ‘Liar, Liar’.

Currently sitting at number 2 in the UK iTunes is a song called ‘Liar, Liar GE 2017’, a song about Theresa May by the band Captain Ska. As you can imagine from the title, it doesn’t paint the Prime Minister as a particularly trustworthy person.

However, despite the song’s success, you won’t hear it on the radio anytime soon, due to broadcasting impartiality guidelines. A song that gets into the top ten can usually be expected to be played on Radio 1’s chart countdown, but Captain Ska didn’t receive that honour.

There were protests outside the BBC yesterday when they refused to play it, with the band even performing it live.

 

Captain Ska founder Jake Painter was however interviewed on Victoria Derbyshire. Yet he claims that he was told “not to go too heavy on the Tories” by the show’s editor.

He wasn’t shy about bringing that up on air.

https://twitter.com/James4Labour/status/870639971174166529

 

The show’s credited editor Louisa Compton however denied Painter’s claim on Twitter, and says that it was not her that Painter spoke to.

 

In April 2013, Radio 1 refused to play ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’, when it reached number two in charts, following a campaign around the death of Margaret Thatcher.