Given the poltical voting it is entirely pointless for the UK to be a part of this competition.
There are only two music powerhouses in the world, the UK and the USA, and as the USA don't compete, by rights we should be close to the top every year, and yet in 21 years we haven't even had a sniff of winning it.
Some other countries occassionally produce decent acts, but it is the USA and the UK which consistently does.
I haven't watched it since the 90s, so I must confess I have no idea of the level of quality of the songs, but I caught some of the winner's song this morning and it was utter 5hite - if that is the best that the contest produced, then then the other songs must have been absolute bilge.