The national arbiter of taste has now deemed the word ENGLAND to be politically incorrect and all football songs that mention England are now banned from Radio 1 in case it upsets the Scots or Irish or Welsh.

Tony Blair's Britain hits a new low.

The "Thought Police" rule our airwaves.

BOYCOTT ALL RECORDS PLAYED BY RADIO ONE ! do not buy them - if you hear them on Radio 1 think of the children of Iraq !

With silly Police raiding innocent people with 400 of them jumping through the windows and now this band England has become the laughing stock of the world.

The sooner New Labour pack up their things and disappera to an island in the Pacific the better.....they have ruined the UK and this ban is the maddest piece of radio programming by any station in the history of radio.

The National Station banning songs that celebrate the biggest event this year..........

more to the point YOU pay for radio 1.I never understood how those dumb playlists work.

I don't understand how radio one's playlist has anything to do with tony blair, but I guess some people will blame him for anything and everything, but would they give him the same credit for anything good?

anyway radio 1 has been crap for many, many years. danny baker was "entertaining" us on the radio 1 airwaves back under john majors tory britain... great days...not.

no surprise there!

The sad thing is that nobody (but you JK) doubted it for a second. Just goes to show what we've got used to in our Nanny State.

Last night on the BBC news hardly any mention of the terrorist cock up was made at 6p.m. All other channels leading with it.

The BBC seems incapable ( and that includes Radio 1 especially ) of acting outside of corporate interests or in many instances Government interests ( Blair )

The Politically Correct lobby in the UK has Blair as their ally ( he wont fly the England flag ) he seems to be very anti English ( Look how London subs Scotland's resources )

I am tired of paying for a Radio 1 that plays rubbish and only plays corporate chosen material. Sometimes an evening show is allowed to play a new band - but only when they are signed by a major label.

Air Traffic are a great example of this - Radio One gave them not one play........until they were signed to EMI.......and that says it all.

I am not against big record companies at all - they exist and are necessary - I am against the very strange playlist policy that Radio 1 has.

I would like to see them rip up the playlist and get back to individual shows deciding what they think should be played - and that the "music policy" is loosened rather than the current one which resembles STALIN's RUSSIA at its worst.

Tony Blair isn't English. Why would he wish to fly their flag?

As JK said, this is (another) tabloid silliness which is unfortunately assimilated by weak minds.

zoo

Sorry but I have had a conversation with a Radio 1 producer which went along the lines of :

R1 : We wont play it.
BR : Why ?
R1 : We will never play a track by this artist
BR : Why not all other stations are playing it ?
R1 : Just wont because it is rock

That artist was never played once on any Radio 1 show - depsite being playlisted on over 100 other radio stations in the UK.

Weak mind ? Radio 1 producers are the weirdest bunch of people I have met in the Music Industry and support their own pet causes.

I have also managed to get into some junkets with the BBC and seen at first hand some of the goings on.

Wasteful, out of touch, and totally overpaid bunch.

Radio 1 is a NATIONAL station - and should play all the football songs because there are 5 in the Top 20 alone this week.

Radio 1 should play what the PEOPLE want to hear - not what some cloth eared producers want them to listen to

If it were not for tha fact that the station still has a legacy from its golden heyday if it were launched now it would struggle for even 3 million listeners. Around half its listenership do so because it is the only choice in their area of national programming in pop/rock.

Bands that are not played on Radio 1 in their early days certainly have more of my respect than those who purely do because of who they know.

I am a big fan of Air Traffic but they are only being played because EMI is behind the tracks ( which have been widely available for months ) Keane I believe likewise. Toploader could not get a single play even though they charted Achilles Heel until they released their Dancing in the Moonlight single - and Radio 1 even missed that out on daytime plays until it charted.

One Music was supposed to do something for new bands but not one band seems to have come though that route despite hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money beingh thrown at it !

Time for the station to be sold to the Commercial sector as recommended in the recent high level report - let the BBC concentrate on public service broadcasting.

Rock and Pop music is commercial - and Radio 1 is the most commercial station of them all with very little nod to new music in its daytime programming or minority music because it has been chased away to the BBC digital stations and segregated.

Radio 1 could still be the number one station if it is set free from the BBC. Time for that to happen.

You're very selective with the one or two examples you pick to support your argument. Radio 1 has playlisted plenty of bands that no other station would touch at the time. And many more have featured in their specialist shows that have gone on to bigger things.

It's preposterous for any radio station to claim to have made any band a success. They all do it, but I don't buy it from anyone. Would Scissor Sisters have been the success they were if Tong hadn't played their white label? Would Arctic Monkeys have been a success if Huw Stephens hadn't featured their demo on his OneMusic show bedore the buzz started? Would Fleeing New York or Yourcodenameis:Milo have been signed if they hadn't done OneMusic sessions? Would Gnarles have been a success if Zane Lowe hadn't featured it on his show and TV advert?

Of course. They all would.

Would Toploader have sustained a career if they'd been featured on Radio 1 more? No. They failed because they were an over-hyped talent vacuum. I just kind of presumed Radio 1 would have playlisted them early but if they didn't then I take my hat off to them. If they did it late then presumably it was because they had to in order to respond to their obvious popularity with their listeners. Oh hang on, that would mean it was because it was what the people wanted to hear.

And 'some radio producers are a bit stupid' is nobody's idea of news. But it doesn't mean they all are.