Column: Gone are the days when Eurovision was purely about the songs and the glitz

If I tell you it’s something that might make being on your mobile phone pointless, you still don’t know if I mean the electromagnetic storm blocking signals on Earth or the constant posts on X making the singing show political.

Everything is political now. Just the other week I was pondering how a local council election in the UK could be about the situation in Gaza. A bin day schedule can’t impact the Middle East. At least a local election is meant to be political, so that explains some of it.

The Eurovision is just a singing event but somehow it was caught up in the same controversy. At least Israel is in the Eurovision, so that makes some sense.

In a normal year you could argue about the geographical reasons for saying Israel shouldn’t take part but this year you’d get caught up in a different row.

It’s worth remembering that in previous years Australia has been in the Eurovision. You couldn’t get further away from Europe and still be on planet Earth, so it’s less to do with being on the continental Europe landmass.

It’s not like Eurovision hasn’t been political before. In 2016 we didn’t get many votes because of Brexit and last year the UK hosted it because the year before was won by Ukraine but they were a little busy to host.

Even in years where there’s no single huge internation political event, the voting pattern show local political allegiances.

The one thing that doesn’t really matter in the Eurovision Song Contest is the song. We already have charts to show which songs are really popular.

Everything is political now. Students at UK university campuses have copied America by having protests about the situation in Gaza. I remember when students famously slept in and watched Countdown.

Thought you could buy an electric vehicle without joining a political team? Guess again.

Are you a fan of Doctor Who? We know your politics now.

The aurora borealis is probably political. I saw the sky showing green and purple colours, which is the Green Party and Reform. They’re not going to get on well.

The only thing that isn’t political is American politics. At the moment that seems to be a courtroom drama that has hush money and an adult actress. Why can’t we have that over here? It’s a refreshing change from all the politics.

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