Eurovision 2013: You'll have been wondering what The Spectator thought

It must be so hard for the Spectator: do you attack Eurovision because it's Europe, or do you attack Eurovision because it's the BBC?

They've gone with a go at the BBC, presumably because the swivel-eyed loons are doing a good enough job of destroying the EU elsewhere at the moment. Fraser Nelson - yes, the editor, no less - contributes his thoughts as to why the UK doesn't win:

Rather than defend the BBC, Mr Bishop confirmed our suspicions. The corporation is useless at entertainment, he said, and no longer has anyone in its hierarchy who understands it. This is a self-reinforcing problem, warned Mr Stockselius, because the BBC decides how Eurovision is presented in Britain. If it sends dreadful acts to compete, and then holds the entire contest up to ridicule, then our successful singers will not be seen dead on a Eurovision stage. Katrina [out the Waves] wanted to know the name of whoever chooses the BBC’s Eurovision entries, ‘so we can slap him’.

It's a plausible point, except it relies on Nelson's view of the BBC rather than fact, history and evidence, to stack it up.

How can we hope to win if people don't take the contest seriously?

Sorry, did you see Lordi? Who won it? Or any number of other more-successful-than-us entries which seize the opportunity for a jolly romp? Or Ireland, constantly sending Jedward, presumably in the hope that they won't come back.

It's a song contest, and people watch it because it's a big old stage of stupid. Fraser Nelson thinks that it'd benefit from a hushed Dimbleby voiceover in place of Graham Norton.

How can we hope to win if our song is chosen by a faceless BBC bureaucrat?

Good point. Let's go back to having a popular vote. Hang on, though, that method ended up with us sending Scooch to Helsinki. We came last-but-one.

In the end, Nelson suggests that maybe ITV or Sky gets the contest instead. (Not Channel 4, you'll note, because this is really yet another Spectator attack on public services disguised as 'giving a shit about a song contest'.)

Preusmably Nelson hasn't seen how terrible the Brits have become since they moved to ITV. Or maybe he really doesn't care.

[Tonight: Eurovision live bloggage. I'm not sure if Huw Edwards will also be doing a more reverential one for the Spectator, but I hope so.]

Justin Hawkins: It should have been me

Naturally, enjoying Scooch's desperate result on Saturday night was Justin Hawkins:

"I think Scooch lost because they were rubbish.

"The BBC shouldn't have put it forward. It was supposed to be different this year. The clues in the title, Eurovision Song Contest. It should have been a song."

It's all very well for Justin to condemn Scooch as rubbish, but it is worth remembering that, when given the chance to vote on potential entries, the British public decided that Hawkins was worse. Even Malta might have found it hard to hold its collective nose and swallow that one...

Pandora opens box

Could it be that Scooch's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest is little more than a derivative, second generation copy of something else?

I believe the answer is "well, duh"; but now Erin Magnusson - who trades as Pandora in Sweden has claimed that Flying The Flag is, actually, her song No Regrets. She's calling for Scooch to be disqualified from the contest.

Per Herrey, legal adviser for the Swedish Musicians’ Union, told me: “Eurovision rules state they cannot use a song that has been released before and the melody of the chorus is the same as Pandora’s.”

Now, we're neither Swedish, nor a lawyer, but we can see a bit of difference between "a song that has been released before" and "a song which, to some ears, appears to have the same melody in the chorus".

Scooch, for their part, point out that they've never heard of Pandora, or heard her music before. However, we do understand they're learning the chorus to My Lovely Horse as a fallback.

Scooch abandon last of their dignity

They didn't have much dignity to dump, but in response to Charlotte Church's attack on them, Scooch has hit back:

Scooch have responded by doing a bit of lambasting of their own.

"It is natural that not everybody is going to like our song. For some reason good fun pop music offends some people. But there is a polite way to express your opinion, something that Charlotte wasn't able to do," band member Caroline Barnes said.

Meanwhile David Ducasse described Church's "outburst" as "cheap" and "attention-seeking" while Russ Spencer delivered the following damning verdict: "What a pity that 'the voice of an angel' has acquired the mouth of a sewer".

There were two other voices attacking Charlotte Church which appeared to come from off in the background somewhere.

Church tells Scooch to shoo

Charlotte Church should know toe-curling embarrassment when she sees it (watching the playback on her chat show should give her enough pointers) so when she says Scooch are bad, we should all sit up and listen:

[Charlotte] said their performance on BBC's Making Your Mind Up "made every pore in my body itch with embarrassment".

On her website, 21, pregnant Charlotte, said the show was "a load of absolute shit" and Cyndi should have gone through to Helsinki.

Well, you can't say fairer than that, can you?

Eurovision: Was the public conned?

Justin Hawkins has dropped his outlandish claims that he was a victim of a racist British public when his rubbish song didn't win Making Your Mind Up, and instead thrown his weight behind the complaints that Scooch somehow 'cheated' by having backing singers offstage.

We're a little lost as to the point of these allegations. Apart from anything, you know what else, Justin? They weren't making the instrument noises with their mouths. The music was coming from somewhere else, too.

What's more: did Justin read what he was signing up for? It's a song contest, and you're meant to be judged on the best song, not the greatest performance. You can argue - and, oh, we would - that the great British Public wouldn't know a rubbish song if it moved in next door and stole their car, but if anyone can explain why you'd need to have all the singers on stage to be able to judge the quality of a song, we'll buy you a ticket to Helsinki.

(Actually, we won't, but we'd like to hear that, nevertheless.)

We can only hope that this will turn out to be a premium rate phoneline cock-up

Scooch? Scooch? Good lord - given a field of second raters, as a nation we ask "do you have a budget option we could see?"

When Terry Wogan tries to suggest we're languishing at the bottom of the Eurovision board because of some sort of Baltic-Nordic block voting, remember: we sent Scooch in.

You start with Morrissey... and work your way down to this

Although Morrissey has ruled himself out of the Eurovision race, that doesn't mean Britain won't be represented in Helsinki by some top-flight entertainers.

Oh, actually: yes, it does. Justin Hawkins is going to be competing.

As is Natasha Hamilton - yes, Atomic Kitten's Natasha Hamilton.

And so are Big Brovaz. Yes, the poor man's Fugees (all phew, no gee) who are planning a comeback in early Spring.

Oh, and Brian Harvey, fresh from the newly rebroken East 17 and hoping that no rogue potato might frustrate him again.

And Scooch. Yes, Mike Stock and Matt Aitken's proof that Pete Waterman was the magic ingredient. They're embarking on a second comeback - you'll remember, of course, they reunited in 2004.

The only fresh face - the Chantelle in a room full of Prestons, if you will - is Cyndi. Such is the reek of old men at the youth club with the other contestants, we did make sure it was a new popstar and not Cyndi Lauper.

God help us all. We're backing France.