The politics of Eurovision

The Eurovision Song Contest has never been more important, and I don’t just mean for fans of feathers, sequins and some eyebrow-raising exhibitionism.

This year’s Contest, with the grand final taking place in Rotterdam on Saturday evening where James Newman will represent the UK, will be the first competition post-Brexit and promises to test how good, or perhaps not, our relations really are with our European neighbours (and Israel and Australia, but let’s not get technical).

The delightful paradox has always been that politics ‘in lyrics, speeches or gestures’ at Eurovision are all banned by the EBU, rules enforced by the sinister sounding’ Reference Group’. Back in 2009, Georgia fell foul with its group’s lyrics ‘We don’t wanna put in’ – apparently a bit dissident-sounding to the Committee’s ear.

Despite the rules, though, I think we’d all be a bit concerned if Eurovision came around and the Cypriot jury didn’t announce, with a straight face, that 12 points were going to Greece.