Parliament has opened a formal inquiry into why the United Kingdom consistently sends songs to Eurovision that score fewer points than a broken smoke detector. The trigger was predictable: a one-point finish in May’s final, which is less a result and more a mercy vote from a single country that felt bad.
The absurdity here is not that we sent a bad song. The absurdity is that we needed MPs to notice. British Eurovision selection has become a national humiliation so reliable you could set a clock by it—the clock would be set to ‘last place,’ and it would be accurate.
What makes this genuinely funny is the governmental response. We have a cost-of-living crisis, a crumbling NHS, and infrastructure held together with duct tape and prayers. Yet somehow, somewhere, a committee decided that the real emergency was our ability to embarrass ourselves on live European television. They formed a working group. They scheduled meetings. Someone printed an agenda.
The UK’s Eurovision problem is not a song selection problem. It is a taste problem, multiplied by the fact that we keep letting the same people make the choice. We have spent decades sending either aggressively safe ballads that bore everyone, or experimental art projects that make viewers question whether they are watching a song or a cry for help.
The inquiry will probably recommend better oversight, more diversity in selection panels, and a return to ‘music that people actually want to hear.’ This will be implemented for approximately one year before we send something called ‘Binary Dreams’ performed by a man in a gimp suit, score three points, and schedule another inquiry.
At least we are consistent about something.