is overblown, self-important, culturally dissonant, democratically unsustainable, diminished by vested interests and sweetheart deals, with barely understandable rules of engagement and opaque methods of achieving an outcome. And that’s before we get on to the costumes, the production and the songs, which, despite Graham Norton’s best efforts, appeared to be devoid of any irony or self-awareness.
Maybe the Brexiteers are right, I thought. Eurovision served to accentuate the differences between us, exposing the fact that we Britons have a very different cultural language from the rest of Europe. No wonder we found it so hard to get agreement on an common agricultural policy when, ostensibly, we have so little in common.
I’m not saying that Eurovision is a perfect metaphor for the European Union, but I do understand why those who have Brexiteer sympathies might point to some similarities. The self-regard and grandiloquence, for instance. A song contest that could have been over in, say, 90 minutes, took days to resolve, the climax of which was a vote that was almost impossible to fathom, and exemplified the democratic shortfall that has been levelled at the workings of the European Parliament.
National juries routinely voted for their neighbours and historic allies, and then the addition of the public vote was, to the naked eye, impossible to understand. Some countries got 15 votes, others got 300. How? Why? Out of how many? The official rules for this part of the voting system are every bit as complicated and arcane as the legislative procedure of the European Parliament.
Should we care about Eurovision? I suppose that, as the last bastion of popular integration within the continent, it’s worth saving. But if it is not to disappear up its own
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