United Kingdom- In the quest to find reasons for their bad results at the Eurovision Song Contest, many British tabloids blame block voting in the “Evil East” or people generally not liking the United Kingdom. Now, the Daily Mail has published an article that claims racism may be the reason the UK does so badly. Indeed, many of recent UK representatives belonged to ethnic minorities: Javine Hylton, Andy Abraham, Jade Ewen, and one member of boy band Blue.
The article claims that industry figures that want to stay anonymous told the paper that they experienced racism before and at the annual contest. One says that they were told before the contest that they did not stand a chance because of the race of their singer. Apparently Andrew Lloyd Webber was asked at a press conference why he had cast a “black girl“.On the basis of these arguments the industry officials allegedly ask for the UK to withdraw from Eurovision.
Engelbert Humperdinck
While racism should certainly be taken seriously, the article is misleading at many points. For one, there is a picture of this year’s winner Loreen from Sweden next to a picture of Engelbert Humperdinck. The subtitle reads: “Sweden’s Loreen, left, won this year’s contest, while right, Anglo-Indian singer Engelbert Humperdinck came a dismal twenty-fifth”. Mentioning Humperdinck’s heritage is absolutely absurd, if anything one would assume a German heritage due to the name. The fact that Loreen is of Moroccan origin is not even mentioned.
Furthermore the fact that Jade Ewen came 5th in 2009 is only mentioned marginally. By any means that is not a bad result. Also boy band Blue came 5th in the televoting last year and was only voted down (deservedly) by the juries presumably due to Lee Ryan’s bad vocal performance. The article also exclude indigenous British performers such as Jemini (last place), Josh Dubovie (last place), Daz Sampson (19.), Scooch (22.). In all, the ethnic minority singers actually did better for Britain in recent years.
It is unfortunately a fact that racism still is afloat in many (all) European countries and a few televoters may not vote for a song they perceive as foreign to a country; but to blame the UK’s bad showing at Eurovision on that is way too simple and probably simply wrong. The article claims that the UK acts did badly despite “strong performances“. We would like to recommend the authors to rewatch some of these performances and to judge the quality and modernity of the songs objectively.
Read the “Daily Mail” article here!
Source= Daily Mail
It would be great if on Eurovision times you could remove your own comments like on you tube and facebook and find it useful if I had made embarsing typing mistakes and etc.
I hate the UK’s blatant arrogance when it comes to everything. I’m Scottish and I have to say that this opinion is probably an English one. I crave a Scottish Eurovision entry because I know that if we enter a shit song and it does shit then we’ll know it was because the song was shit and not all the other reasons that the English claim is the problem.
This is exactly why I back scotish inderpendence, my mums family are scotish and live up in Thurso, I get fed up with the English attitudes towards eurovision, plus it isnt fair the artist allways has to be English. The UK is a complete Joke, why is it a union when there is no joint decision making in this country, at the end of the day its the English goverment that gets the final say what happens in the whole of the UK. Its time Scotland got inderpendence at last and they bring forward the referendom date.
PREECH! I totally agree. We have absolutely no say in anything. When an English person wins anything they are known as the “English” winner, but if a Scottish person does, the English then jump on the “British” bandwaggon, to try and steal some of the glory. It’s sad but I genuinely wish we had our own entrant because we’d probably perform so much better. Europeans love Scotland but hate the English. We’re tarred with the “British” brush.
Exactly, I hate the fact I come under all the mainland european hate becuase I’m English, I suppose I’m half English and Scotish mind, and when I move there for uni I’ll feel more closer to calling myself scotish rather than English.the situation in the UK is the same of that when there was Yugoslavia and Serbia controlled everything and then mother Russia with the USSR.
Don’t read trash like the Daily Mail. They just write shit and make stories up to fill their rag.
GREECE IS EAST EUROPE AND I THINK ENGELBERT DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT THE RACIST GROUP IN GREECE , I AM AN ALBANIAN AND A RACIST GROUP IN GREECE DOES HORRIBLE THINGS LIKE GREEKS ARE WHITE PEOPLE, GREEKS ARE ALSO VERY DARK PEOPLE AND THERE ARE MILLIONS OF GREEKS IN OTHER COUNTRIES SO I DON’T GET HOW COME GREEKS DO THESE THINGS TO THEIR IMMIGRANTS , ALSO THERE ARE MANY GREEKS IN ALBANIA BUT THEY ARE SAFE, I HATE RACISM AND ALL RACISTS HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THEMSELVES.
And after that Daily Mail article, Andrew Lloyd Webber has just mentioned all this yesterday during an interview with BBC Radio times!
Hilarius when people are trying to find excuses, especially in eurovision… Well at least, they have a reason to complain. I recently saw a video from 1988, when viewers of a BBC (i think) program, were complaining of foul and partisant voting… and that year the UK ended up 2nd!!! If only they could imagine that UK would be struggling to be on the top 10!
UK would’ve done well in 1980′s with Engelbert. he’s just so old fashioned now that I don’t know WHAT they were thinking sending him, a legend….. from the 1980′s or something. Probably thinking a ballad would be good after an impressive result in 2009 with a ‘It’s my time’. But Jade ISN’T old fashioned.
“Boo hoo, the continentals only vote for their neighbours”
Says the UK. Whilst giving 12 points to Ireland.
What, so because Nicki Minaj, Beyonce or Rihanna aren’t white, they can’t possibly be famous? Look at them, they’re multi-millionaire brown women. Racism isn’t a problem for UK’s failures at ESC, it’s just an excuse.
The last decent performer we saw for UK (apart from Jade Ewen) was Javine. Everyone hates the UK. End Of Story.
They’d be in with a chance if this was a worldwide thing (considering the Commonwealth) but really, the UK isn’t going to get anywhere near the Top 10 with Scooch or Engelbert Humper-whatever-you-spell-it. Bring back Javine. (y)
see the usual anti english scottish bigots still spewing their venom..get that big chip off your shoulders JOCKLAND!
What i don’t get is i’m from the UK and i think this is BS you can’t call rascism because some of the acts are of ethnic minorties look at Jade Ewen she came 5th if the ECS is as rascist at the daily mail says it is then she wouln’t have came top 5, same with Blue they came 11th i think and that is still good, reason why andy abraham came so low was the song was shit let’s be honest that was why! no racism involved at all besides all the acts mentioned came in this order:
Javine Hyton in 2005 sang touch my fire and came 22nd with 18 points
Jade Ewen in 2009 sang It’s my time and came 5th with 173 points
Andy Abraham in 2008 sang Even If and came 25th with 14 points
Blue ( Member Simon Webb is an ethnic minority ergo are mentioned in this) in 2011 sang I can and came 11th with 100 points
Let’s look at this logically
The best was Jade and worse was Andy because her song was better than Andy’s That isn’t racism that’s truth so i find it BS that the daily mirror call it racism when it isn’t it might look like that but racism is vile and nasty so how can you vote one mirnoity above another is it was truly racism than all 4 acts would have gotten bad scores when infact 2 were bad, one were good and one excellent
And i would like to add they people like me who have watched ESC since 1997 ( when the UK last won so i was 5 so for 15 years i’ve watched ESC and i don’t like people saying that the UK says it was racism when infact it is a newspaper making BS to get more readers i know it’s not racism yes in the past there has been block voting infact for the UK entry Scooch that was a year of block voting as Malta gave the 12 as it was a protest for block voting to if you want to spin it on it’s hear racism is not just about ehtnic minorites but racism is both ways you can’t say they got low marks becaue they are black or because they are latino, that would mean acts like Jemini, scooch, Daz Sampson got low scores because they aare white. Like i said racism works both ways you can’t have one without the other!
Rant over!