'Fuck you, we didn't do what you told us'

British reality TV show The X Factor, which presents itself as a singing competition, has succeeded from 2005-08 in securing the number one Christmas single in the British charts for the winner of the competition. The X Factor has been repeatedly criticised for being rigged and for its shallow commercialism.

In 2009, a grassroots campaign was started on the social networking site Facebook to prevent the show again taking the number one Christmas single via the mass purchase of anti-establishment band Rage Against the Machine's 1992 single "Killing in the Name Of". The anti-racist song features the famous line, shouted repeatedly, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"

X Factor creator and judge Simon Cowell publicly denounced the campaign, but by December 20 "Killing in the Name Of" had risen to number one.

Buoyed by this success, a new campaign has been started on Facebook to make the Sex Pistols' anti-royal anthem "God Save the Queen" the number one British single to coincide with the Queen's birthday celebrations in June.

The song was originally released at the same time as the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977. It is generally accepted that it was the top selling single at the time, but that the record industry manipulated the sales figures to prevent it becoming number one to avoid embarrassing the Royal family.

From GLW issue 822