Reunited boy band Blue will represent the UK in the boom-bang-a-bang world of the Eurovision Song Contest. Is it good for Eurovision and Blue? And why didn’t the public get a say over who represents us?

THE former manager of grown-up boy band Blue did not mince his words when he discovered that his one-time charges were bidding for Eurovision glory.

"Reckless insanity," was Daniel Glatman's verdict on the comeback ploy.

"They will have to win. Anything less and their reputation would be in tatters."

The boom-bang-a-bang world of Eurovision has become a wasteland of broken dreams for the UK. We have finished bottom three times in the last eight years.

Last year, Pete Waterman – the man they once called The Hit Man – scored a definite miss. The song he wrote for Josh Dubovie, That Sounds Good To Me, didn’t sound so good to voters across Europe, finishing last with just 10 points.

The year before, the combined titanic talents of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren produced It’s My Time, which took Jade Ewen to fifth.

But Andy Abraham propped up the foot of the Eurovision table in 2008, Scooch, were second from last in 2007, Stockport’s Daz Sampson was 19th out of 24 in 2006, and 2003 saw Jemini not only finish last but also receive the ultimate Eurovision wooden spoon – ‘nul points’.

But could it be that we, the British people, are partly to blame because we’ve been picking duds as our song for Europe?

Martin Isherwood, from Prestwich, is head of music at Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts – and the man who wrote that ‘nul points’-winning song by Jemini. "

He said: "British public tastes tend to be slightly out of step with mainland European tastes.

"In mainland Europe, particularly in the east, they tend to go for the weird and wonderful.

"In the UK we tend to stick with quite current pop. And what is current domestic pop in the UK is not necessarily anything like current pop in mainland Europe."

Asked why the public gets no say in our song for Europe this year, a BBC spokesman explains: "Every year the BBC reviews how the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest is made and it’s often changed.

"In 2011, to give us a strong chance, the idea was to work with an established, highly credible act; a group with wide appeal and a proven track record of success not only in the UK but also across Europe. The only way to secure such an act was to make an internal selection, like many other countries already do."

Paul Marks-Jones, Manchester-based president of the UK’s Organisation Generale des Amateurs de l'Eurovision (the Eurovision fan club) says: "For the first time, I think, since 1957, they’ve already decided on the artist and the song. The public don’t get a choice.

"That’s quite unusual for us in the UK, but that is common practice in other countries around Europe."

Had the Beeb ditched its democratic approach to Eurovision four years ago, it could have had an even more unusual standard-bearer.

Manchester’s own Morrissey was keen to represent the UK in 2007 after Daz Sampson's Teenage Life faltered in 2006.

But it is difficult to imagine any established artist – be it Morrissey or Blue – vying to be our Eurovision ambassador while the system allowed the public to perversely snub them in favour of some comparative unknown or vote for them to sing a song they don’t like.

As a result, the UK has often sent fresh talents out to Eurovision, pitting them against very experienced artists from other countries.

Isherwood says: "It is quite an intimidating thing to do and I think we’ve suffered for it."

His Eurovision entry Cry Baby was tipped to do well until a technical fault meant Jemini could not hear their backing track, so sang off-key. Britain’s international unpopularity over war in Iraq may also have contributed to that ‘nul points’.

But Marks-Jones does not hold with the popular notion that block voting by clusters of nations, particularly in eastern Europe, means the UK can never again match the victories of Sandie Shaw, Lulu, Brotherhood Of Man, Bucks Fizz and Katrina And The Waves.

He says: "People misunderstand when they say it's block voting.

"In the UK we only hear our own entry. But if you live in Croatia, you'll hear the Serbian entry, the Bosnian entry, the Macedonian entry, the Greek entry. When it comes to voting, you’re going to vote for something you’ve heard before.

"If the song is decent, strong, memorable and performed well on the night, I don’t see any reason why we should not win. We finished fifth just two years ago. That proves that Europe is not voting against us all the time."

For Blue – who include Moss Side-born Simon Webbe – taking their song I Can to Eurovision in Germany is a gamble.

Though the band was put on hold in 2004 for the members to pursue solo projects, they are an act with a string of top 10 hits to their name. We have not had an act with that level of success as our Eurovision entry since the likes of Cliff Richard in the 1970s.

Marks-Jones said: "Anybody in the music industry will realise they have an audience of a billion people watching.

"Blue were really big in Europe at their height. They’ve been away working on solo projects, and this is a good way to introduce them back not just to the UK audience but to the whole of Europe, where they have a massive fan base already."

Tweet