London, Mar 3 (NNN-IRNA) The BBC was accused Friday of banning an anti-war song, mocking Prime Minister Tony Blair, because of fears that it will offend the government.
Leader of the anti-war Respect Party, George Galloway, said he would be raising the issue in parliament and would also be writing to the BBC's director general Mark Thompson, according to the Campaign for Broadcasting Freedom (CBF).
"This lick-spittle BBC has a deplorable record of toadying to the government," said Galloway, who plays a cameo role in the song, a cover version of War (What Is It Good For?) by the Ugly Rumours, named after Blair's band when he was a university student.
"Let's not forget that only three people have lost their jobs over the war, two of them BBC employees, and not one government minister has paid the price for sending us into this illegal and immoral war," he was quoted saying.
BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and director general Gregg Dykes were forced to resign from their posts after the state-funded broadcaster was castigated in a report into the death of former Iraq arms inspector David Kelly.
Kelly was identified as the source of the claim in a BBC report that the government exaggerated Saddam Hussein's arms threat to justify the Iraq war.
CBF reported that the anti-war video had risen to sixth in the UK's pop single charts and was vying to be number one, even though it is only available as a download.
The song has already been publicised by the BBC, but only on a regional news program and as a last item on Independent Television News on Thursday, CBF said.
The BBC's pop station Radio One was due to broadcast a package about the single for its Newsbeat programme on Friday, but was pulled at the last minute because it was not newsworthy, according to the campaign group.
Respect claimed that it had been told privately from within the highest sources at the BBC that a banning order had been instituted against the anti-war song.
But a spokesperson for the BBC confirmed to the CPBF that the decision was taken on `newsworthy grounds' and that two other stories also had not been included.
Stop the War Coalition, which is promoting the song, was hoping that the anti-war song would be in the UK pop charts at the time of the fourth anniversary of the war in March.
"Make history and get a British prime minister into the charts singing for peace, instead of making war," the peace group network said.