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United Kingdom wonders what went wrong

"Questions will be asked about the decision to hand the Eurovision Song Contest baton to a 76-year-old," notes the Daily Mail.

The United Kingdom is once again navel-gazing after its dismal performance at Eurovision 2012.

Engelbert Humperdinck came 25th out of 26 acts with just 12 points. Only Norway was lower with 7 points.

Speaking after his performance, he said: “I had a great time, a very wonderful time. I hope everyone listening to the song… we shared the song with every generation. I sang it from my heart.”

The UK hasn’t won since 1997 and as a key funder of the event continues to be unhappy that it hasn’t managed another win. It has been #25 for three of the last five years, only managing #5 with Jade Ewan in 2009.

Already the British press is analysing what went wrong.

“Questions will be asked about the decision to hand the Eurovision Song Contest baton to a 76-year-old, leading to one of the worst outcomes for the UK,” notes the Daily Mail.

“Until 2011, the public had a say in who represented the UK and with which song, but that was abandoned when boy-band Blue were sent to sing I Can, in the hope an established name could bring home the title.They managed to come 11th last year, a respectable position in comparison to this year.

The Mirror said, “We’ve tried old timers (the Hump), established acts (Blue), bright new hopes (Jade Ewen and Jessica Garlick) and comedy (Scooch).

“So what should we do next?”

Readers were quoted:

Beryl Douglas wrote: “It’s time to end the farce which is called Eurovision Song Contest, it’s out of date now.

“The voting is political and has nothing to do with the artist, the voice or the song.”

Veronica Holgate said: “Should be scrapped, too many politics involved.”

And Lynn McLean agreed, adding: “It’s not a song competition anymore.”

But the UK’s biggest problem is in turning to celebrities to win Eurovision. Engelbert, Blue, Andrew Lloyd Webber …how about just sending a good song like Sweden did?

This year also showed that politics didn’t rule the event. The Semi-Finals now ensure that the former Iron Curtain countries no longer dominate with bloc-voting.

The UK needs to get a grip and stop blaming the contest for its own lousy entrants.

34 Responses

  1. Most Brits knew exactly what went wrong the minute this years act was announced – it was always going to be propping up the leaderboard.

    If the journalists did their research rather than just picking out quotes from the increasingly bitter final few years of Terry Wogan overseeing events they’d see Eurovision is actually one of the most open competitions around – since Sweden last won in 1999 there have been 13 different winners in 13 years.

    All the UK has to do is send a decent song which actually represents UK music as it is today – it doesn’t even need to be a big name. Our three big flops of recent years (The Hump, the Pete Waterman effort and The X Factor binman routine) were all notably dated and everyone except the select few responsible for choosing our entrants could see that without needing to wait for Europe to cast their votes.

  2. Hello DocSteve: Yes I agree Simon Cowell should fart the national anthem. This would be far better than any song ever sung for Eurovision. A Nobel prize and Eurovision win to Simon Cowell if he lit his own fart such that he exploded to a billion parts would be wow fan-flippin-fantastic!!

  3. It is strange that Eurovision garners much more interest in Australia than the UK. Most Brits have ignored it for years now.

    If they really want to win it they should just get Simon Cowell on board – can’t stand the guy myself – but he is the sort that could make this work – though he may have contractual obligations to ITV and Eurovision is BBC.

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