You can’t blame politics (or Brexit) for Britain’s Eurovision woe

Yes, Eurovision is political – but for 20 years now, this fact has been used as an excuse to explain why Britain bombs. Everyone hates us, runs the complaint, the system is rigged, there’s nothing we can do. But as we digest the latest embarrassment (we just finished last – again) it’s hard to escape a simple point. The UK entry does badly because it tends not to be as good as the others. If the English-singing Duncan Laurence (pictured, above) had been singing for the UK instead of The Netherlands, he’d still have won.

We are guaranteed a place straight into the final, as the UK pays so much money to the European Broadcasting Union. This has made us lazy, fielding songs that would never have made it through the semi-finals – a gauntlet most other countries have to run. In denies place in the final to smaller countries who put in more effort and have (far) better songs.