Should we leave Eurovision?
The UK came 25th in last night's Eurovision contest, out of 25. We didn't have a great song, true, but it was better than a few of the others that scored much higher.
What became obvious was the now political nature of voting in Eurovision, with all of the Baltic states voting for each other, many of the Nordic states doing likewise and anyone who had the remotest affiliation with Russia giving them maximum points.
The UK gets an automatic by into the final, despite our song, because we pay our way. If we have no chance of winning because the voting is no longer about the song, but who your neighbours are, should be just withdraw and not enter?
What would the competition be without the like of France, Germany and UK? Nothing, it would have little money because we're the nations who can afford to fund it.
So, next year, I vote we do one of two things:
- Pull out entirely and leave them to it, maybe start a new competition where voting can be better policed to stop political voting (or include nations who, frankly, don't care about political voting).
- Put through the worst song we can think of, perhaps three minutes of silence with the occasional dog growl from the performer. We're not going to do any worse than this year and maybe it'll draw some attention to how stupid the situation is.