To think the UK should not fund the Eurovision Song Contest?

[NowIsTheSpringOfOurDiscontent]

Or bother entering obviously.

It’s a humiliation and everyone hates us so we hardly get any votes. None this year due to Brexit and the Covid vaccine probably.

Poor James . He certainly didn’t deserve NIL points!

@EileenGC

And all the previous years? I didn’t vote for the UK and it wasn’t because of Covid or Brexit. It’s because the song was... not good.

Utter rubbish was a good song, better than a lot Albania, what was that all about? Germany as Norton rightly said 'like an educational video warning children not to eat soap'. Granted Janes wasn't the best but he was a lot better than some efforts last night. Voting was purely political.

4 of the top 5 sang in their native language this year.

I would love to see Scottish men in kilts, maybe a cheeky bagpipe and a funky song in Gaelic/part Gaelic.

And why is Australia voting? Weird concept of geography perhaps??

Australia has been competing in Eurovision since 2015 and will be competing until 2023, at least. They've actually placed quite well in previous years.

In order to compete you have to be invited and you have to be part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which SBS (Australia) joined in 1979.

I'm really in awe of how politically with it you all seem to be. I've always thought people watched it for light entertainment, formed an opinion and voted (or didn't).

I hadn't realized you should keep a score over ALL the countries' political blunders the past year. I guess this makes it much more educational than I thought it was. (Cannot get my head around how some countries have won if this is the case though).

But by all means, you didn't win because of brexit and vaccines .

Lol, the eurovision song contest has always been viewed as uncool in the UK. Getting Nul points is part of the fun.

Hard to believe that Israel’s presence hardly caused a stir.

Not really. Russia are regulars.

@Giantrooster
My friends and family in Europe say that Brexit is not an issue talked about or that anyone is interested in now. It has happened.

The hilarious comments on twitter about why 'even' Ireland didn't vote for the UK shows how myopic some Brits are. You do know that Brexit caused an absolute shit-show in Northern Ireland (and the Republic)? As well as the song being pretty dire, some of the voting certainly is political (in soft terms) and the UK voting for BoJo and the Tories and their often xenophobic attitudes is not going to endear them to Eurovision watchers.

@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere

I for one am completely convinced that Australia, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Moldova, San Marino, Norway, Switzerland, Israel and Azerbaijan were only prevented from voting for our brilliant song because they’re so pissed off about us leaving the EU while they’re still stuck inside it.

But they didn’t leave a gigantic hole in the pockets of the EU they’ve recently stopped filling 🧐

@Littlepaws18 do you realise that there are plenty of other countries that got 0 points? Austria and Norway being the two that got it the most.

Does the whole of Europe hate Norway too? Do they not have any political allies?

Or do these arguments only apply to poor,ickle , disadvantaged UK?

@Marguerite2000

Lol, the eurovision song contest has always been viewed as uncool in the UK. Getting Nul points is part of the fun.

This ^ No one cares.

@HPFA

I don't think Europeans "hate" us - I just think they're completely mystified!

We have a corrupt and incompetent government, we've deprived ourselves of the right to ;live and work freely in Europe, we've damaged our economy, we whine constantly about the results of our own decisions.

What are they supposed to think?

And the vaccines thing is really getting embarrassing - EU countries are vaccinating at equal or faster rates to the UK now - the difference in getting everyone done won't be that great in the end. The UK also took some risks in fast approval and spacing - it seems like those have paid off but it's easy to imagine a different scenario.

You’re post fails to state that the British public voted to leave. More people voted to leave than remain so don’t try to suggest it was a government decision.

Not sure where the evidence is to suggest we’ve damaged our economy?....

Have you forgotten how embarrassing that the EU were for saying that we’re going to stop the vaccines coming here, because they didn’t order fast enough? I think that’s one thing you can’t pin on the UK, our government acted appropriately at that point. The embarrassment was on the part of the EU!

@MotherOfGodHoulYerWhisht

Remember the year Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber got involved? Everybody got excited that we were in with a real chance, this was our year etc... 👎🏻 Europe hate us.

But that song was awful too! We need a real upbeat, fun song with lots of loud set pieces. Something we can all get behind and build up hype on. ALW was the usual boring crap, same as this year!

I love EV, but the UK is always putting out generic rubbish that is never deserving of points.

The only song I have liked a bit in recent years is 'still in love with you' but having listened to it quite recently, it seems to glorify controlling behaviours in relationships.

Do people not realise that our low-scoring at the Eurovision has far exceeded the existence of Brexit? It’s not like we were coming first place every year and then we suddenly start getting zero points when Brexit happened. We have been putting up terrible songs and continuously projecting this chip on our shoulder that is perplexing to most Europeans for the good part of a couple of decades now. I doubt Brexit or the vaccine rollout had a significant impact on the way anyone voted and if it did, a kick ass song would have most likely overcome a significant amount of that - as has been shown several times in the past by countries who were politically unpopular at the time but who still absolutely smashed it with their song that year and scored well.

I loved the Norwegian entry, which won the public vote, in 2019. It was dancey and camp and Eurovision but had elements of traditional Norwegian culture, and the performers were great.

We need to take parts in the heats to force us to make an effort, but we need to find a way of making that effort without taking the whole thing so seriously that the end result just isn't Eurovision. We also need to do better at finding performers who have a bit of sparkle.

Yes the ALW song was awful. It just sounded like a song he'd written for a musical years ago and forgotten about.

@UrAWizHarry

It was a shit song and it was EASILY the worst presented.

Some fat bloke from down the pub dressed in... fucking whatever he was wearing dancing like a 90 year old and singing out of key.

But sure, he didn't get any points because of vaccines

Exactly this. I was embarrassed for him.

@MagicSummer

The trouble with the whole contest is that it has become a parody of itself. Why can't we go back to a singer/band performing on a stage with a backing group, etc. without all the flashing lights, fireworks, ridiculously camp individuals, women with moustaches, people covered in tattoos, etc.? It should be about the song and the performer, not all the extra bits which are, quite honestly, boring.

Oh come on, Bucks Fuzz were ripping their skirts off in the 70s, there have always been campy, silly songs.

Most of the actual winners are perfectly serious entries.

Oh, and don't overlook Amanda Holden's utter disdain for Europe by making it clear that only English counts, pretending she didn't know which language 'bon soir' was.

Every other country representative proudly speaks multiple languages. Here, many are proud not to. Again, embarrassing and puts the rest of Europe off.

It's not because they hate us, it can't be when a country that's currently bombing the shit out of another one gets more votes than us.

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

I Eurovisxit long before Brexit as I understand it’s not been a European song contest for years and that is not because it’s intercontinental but more because it’s an annual entertainment circus with some political and woke activism with varying agendas and block voting trends. Each to their own as like other beauty contests the best and by definition popular and established don’t complete in this spectacle as it’s more overall for second rate unknowns than top flight musicality. Admittedly it’s usually good entertainment and works well for social gatherings etc listening to other languages with occasionally some refreshing aural delights in a language one does not understand but resonates well emerge.

You could write the lyrics for next year's UK entry... 👀

Its also worth noting that other countries put in lots of effort to make their song a hit in other European countries before the finals. We have a media blitz in the UK for our entry, but we don't make a big effort to get other countries to play our song before the final.

The Italian song that won - it might have been the first time you heard it at the final, but its been top of streaming charts across Europe for a while.

We need to pick a song that could reasonably be a hit (that embers one wasn't), then get a marketing buzz round in before the show.

I loved the Norwegian entry, which won the public vote, in 2019. It was dancey and camp and Eurovision but had elements of traditional Norwegian culture, and the performers were great.

Keiino with 'Spirit in the Sky' - I loved them too.

@CounsellorTroi

Yes the ALW song was awful. It just sounded like a song he'd written for a musical years ago and forgotten about.

It came 5th though, so better than a lot!

If you're going to put a man who looks like Rag'n'Bone Man up as a contestant, he'd better sing as good. He didn't.