I'm Irish not British, but my heart did break for him a little with the nul points- however I did think James had a brilliant reaction and it was really appreciated by the crowd! Good man James!
The song, performance and staging weren't great; but a large part of the vote - especially the public vote goes on, shall we say, 'other factors' too. Remember the near-pornographic Polish milkmaids that stormed it with the public vote.
As a 35yo, larger, average-looking man in awkward, non-revealing clothes, he was already at a big visual disadvantage to some of the other acts. I'm not saying that's all it goes on in any way, nor that some of the beautiful young women wearing next to nothing aren't also brilliant singers with excellent songs; but their looks and clothing choices clearly don't hurt their chances, going on many of the entries year on year.
On top of that, imho, having a lower voice automatically puts a singer at a disadvantage in such a large stadium, as it doesn't carry as well or distinctly as the female and higher-pitched male singers' voices do. Even Paul Robeson wouldn't have filled the arena with the same clarity and distinctiveness as the bloke from Portugal who sounded like Tina Turner this year.