Eurovision shame should prompt UK to look for Wellerman-style viral hit – Scotsman comment

As if it didn’t have enough to contend with, now the BBC is being blamed for the UK’s dismal “nul points” at the Eurovision song contest.

The UK's James Newman took his Eurovision score of zero with good grace (Picture: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

Liz Truss, International Trade Secretary, took a break from negotiating all those post-Brexit trade deals the nation was promised and needs so desperately to appear on LBC radio. And she took the opportunity to lambast the Beeb, saying the “fundamental problem” was the way in which our entrants are chosen – ie, by the corporation – while blatantly buttering up a commercial rival.

“I am here today at LBC responding to questions from listeners. That is the kind of testing that we need our song contest entrant to go through. So maybe it should be LBC running it, not the BBC ” she said.

Truss also disagreed with suggestions that the failure to attract any votes at all was a “post-Brexit snub” from Europe’s other nations.

Somewhere, deep in the heart of Whitehall, policy wonks are probably hard at work trying to come up with other things that can be similarly described as the BBC’s fault and nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit. Can ‘Evil Aunty’ somehow take the blame for chlorinated chicken?

However, despite surely having better things to do, Truss’s criticism of our Eurovision selection strategy is quite correct. When trying to find a song that appeals to a mass audience, it makes little sense to entrust this task to a small group of people, whether they work for the BBC, LBC or, indeed, The Scotsman.

Instead, the powers-that-be should perhaps look to social media’s viral successes, such as Airdrie’s own Nathan Evans, of Wellerman fame, for inspiration.