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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Zoe Williams

Britain loves its underdogs. We should be celebrating our Eurovision flops, not investigating them

Eurovision Britain Zoe Williams House of Commons United Kingdom Sam Battle Sam Ryder
A man in a pink jumpsuit kicks his leg in the air while playing a keyboard attached to an oversized computer motherboard
Best of Britain … Sam Battle, AKA Look Mum No Computer, at Eurovision 2026. Photograph: Radek Miča/AFP/Getty Images

The State of Play inquiry, which is run by the UK House of Commons’ digital, culture, media and sport select committee, recently announced the five areas on which it will focus in 2026-27. One of these is: why are our Eurovision entries so bad? The word used by the chair, Dame Caroline Dinenage, was “dismal”, which is parliamentary speak for “shit”.

The evidence is all around. With the exceptions of Sam Ryder (second in 2022) and Jade Ewen (fifth in 2009), the UK has bumped along the bottom of the table in recent years, coming last in 2021 and 2026, second last in 2023 and 19th and 18th in 2025 and 2024 respectively. In four of those cases, the artist received no public votes at all.

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