The Pogues call Laurence Fox a ‘herrenvolk s***e’ over Fairytale Of New York outrage

The Pogues made their stance clear (Picture: Getty)

The Pogues appear to have ended the Fairytale Of New York debate with one savage tweet to Laurence Fox.

The Irish band branded the Lewis actor a ‘herrenvolk s***e’ after he opposed BBC Radio 1’s decision to play an edited version of Fairytale Of New York this Christmas. 

It was announced today that the words ‘slut’ and ‘f****t’ in the second verse of the classic Pogues and Kirsty MacColl song would not be played on BBC Radio 1, with an edited version provided by the record label, in an effort to avoid offending younger listeners.

The original song will still be played on Radio 2, while presenters on 6 Music will be given the choice between the two versions.

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Fox -who has waged a war on the ‘woke’ of late, started his own political party and boycotted Sainsbury’s after they showed support for Black History Month – was rather offended by Radio 1’s decision to leave out the homophobic slur when playing Fairytale Of New York, and took to Twitter to urge others to get the ‘proper version’ to number one.

The 42-year-old tweeted: ‘Here we go again. The cultural commissars at the @bbc are telling you what is and isn’t appropriate for your ignorant little ears. Wouldn’t it be nice if we sent the (proper) version to the top of the charts? #DefundTheBBC. RT.’

The Pogues, however, didn’t share the same stance as Fox.

The official Twitter account of the band quote-tweeted the actor and wrote: ‘F*** off you little herrenvolk s***e.’

Laurence was outraged by Radio 1’s decision (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX)

The word herrenvolk means ‘master race’ and was a concept in Nazi ideology that proposed the racial superiority of Europeans and disenfranchised minority groups.

Many people seemed to love The Pogues’ response, with the post racking up nearly 4,000 retweets and 12,000 likes in an hour.

Fox, however, ignored the clapback and continued on his crusade to get the uncensored Fairytale Of New York to number one, tweeting: ‘I’d someone would be kind enough to assemble a tweet with links to the original version on music websites, I will buy them a pint.’

As it happens, the versions available to download from Apple Music and to stream on Spotify come from The Pogues’ compilation The Ultimate Collection and the album If I Should Fall from Grace with God, and are uncensored.

Radio 1 will play the song with tweaked lyrics

Despite its popularity every year, Fairytale Of New York has never actually been Christmas number one in the UK, peaking at number two; however, it did reach number one in Ireland in 1987. 

In recent years, there has been annual controversy over the slurs in the song, with arguments over whether they should be censored – despite Kirsty MacColl replacing the word ‘f****t’ with ‘haggard’ during live performances in 1992 without issue. 

While lead singer Shane MacGowan last year expressed his confusion over the controversy, The Pogues expressed their position by sharing a number of tweets today.

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They quote-tweeted writer Harrison Brock, who wrote: ‘This is all I’m gonna say on it for the whole year: the word itself being in Fairytale Of New York doesn’t bother or offend me, but straight people being so angry & outraged at its removal and literally fighting and arguing for the right to sing it bothers me deeply’, and added: ‘This.’

The band also tweeted: ‘And this’ with artist Bethany Black’s tweet reading: ‘“We’ve decided not to play Fairytale of New York out of respect for LGBT people, in other news the Govt have axed funding for anti LGBT Bullying programs in school.”’

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