{"id":45283,"date":"2026-05-17T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/45283\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T13:58:10","slug":"look-mum-no-fans-why-the-uk-came-last-in-eurovision-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/45283\/","title":{"rendered":"Look mum, no fans: Why the UK came last in Eurovision \u2013 again"},"content":{"rendered":"

With crushing inevitability, the United Kingdom came last in the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a>. Our entry \u2013 Eins, Zwei, Drei by Sam Battle, a 37-year-old YouTuber from Lincolnshire who performs under the name Look Mum No Computer \u2013 received the dreaded nul points from the audience vote.<\/p>\n

From the international juries, it bagged a single point, courtesy of Ukraine, leaving it 515 points adrift of Bulgaria\u2019s winning song Bangaranga and confirming it as the UK\u2019s poorest performance since 2021, when James Newman received no points whatsoever. So how did it go so wrong \u2013 again? Let me count the ways.<\/p>\n

1. The performance<\/p>\n

On the big night, the performance fell as flat as a pancake in Vienna\u2019s massive Wiener Stadthalle arena. Battle\u2019s live vocals had no bite and the accompanying thumping bassline just echoed about inconsequentially. The song was a mash-up of styles: a bit synthpop with a shouty chorus that looked to pander to the European audience while remaining \u201cwackily\u201d British. \u201cEins, zwei, drei \/ Darlin\u2019 I need something salty \/ Eins, zwei, drei \/ With a slice of pepperoni,\u201d Battle sang, sporting a pink boiler suit, before going on to mention roly-poly with custard.<\/p>\n

The staging saw Battle surrounded by dancers with fury boxes on their heads as he sat in a recreation of an office, pretending to be bored, then clowned around on rows of desks. While they were clearly aiming for a deliberately lo-fi aesthetic, the whole thing appeared pitifully underpowered: the poor guy looked lost. He did his best, but it felt excruciating at times.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam Battle\u2019s performance received just a single point in the voting – UNIVERSAL NEWS AND SPORT (SCOTLAND)<\/p>\n

2. Eurovision doesn\u2019t do quirky<\/p>\n

Eurovision is a broad church that embraces a lot of different styles: camp, bombastic, mawkish, outrageous, colourful and emotional. But the one thing it doesn\u2019t seem to do anymore is \u201cquirky\u201d. The last time a larky comedy song won was in 2018 when Israel\u2019s Netta won with Toy, a song in which the Bj\u00f6rk-lookalike made chicken noises. All the winners since then have been either operatic ballads, operatic bangers, rock songs or \u2013 in the case of Ukraine\u2019s Kalush Orchestra in 2022 \u2013 folk-tinged paeans to their war-torn homeland. It seems that, in selecting the eccentric Battle, the BBC (which chooses the UK\u2019s Eurovision entry with the help of music industry experts) misjudged the prevailing Eurovision mood.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam Battle\u2019s performance of \u2018Eins, zwei, drei\u2019 fell as flat as a pancake – Getty<\/p>\n

3. The timing<\/p>\n

History has shown that acts who perform later in the Grand Final tend to do better. Performing early on hobbles your chances; in the past decade, no winner has performed in the first eight slots. Performing second is the worst \u2014 no one in the so-called \u201cdeath slot\u201d has ever won Eurovision. This year, the UK\u2019s slot was bang in the middle: 14th out of 25. The last Eurovision winner to have performed in the 14th slot was Denmark in 2000, which didn\u2019t exactly bode well. Having said that, Bucks Fizz performed 14th when they won in 1981 for Making Your Mind Up. Alas, such success was not to be repeated this year.<\/p>\n

\"Bucks<\/p>\n

Bucks Fizz pictured in 1981 – HULTON ARCHIVE<\/p>\n

4. Song choice<\/p>\n

These days, most Eurovision acts wear their influences heavily. The show can seem like an episode of ITV\u2019s Stars in Their Eyes. It\u2019s a fun game to guess which best-selling act each performer is ripping off\u2026 sorry, paying homage to. Just look at this year\u2019s contest. Tonight Matthew, we saw Bulgaria\u2019s Dara channelling Brat superstar Charli XCX\u2026 and she won. Meanwhile Czechia\u2019s Daniel Zizka brought to mind Scottish troubadour Jacob Alon, Germany\u2019s Sarah Engels mimicked Dua Lipa and Norway\u2019s Jonas Lovv effectively did a Harry Styles impression. You get the idea.<\/p>\n

The problem with Eins, Zwei, Drei was that there was no clear single influence. It was a mixture of more obscure sources such as Kraftwerk, Kasabian and Klaxons (all the Ks) plus a dollop of Blur and a generous glug of 1980s synthpop composer Thomas Dolby. It was overthought.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Battle\u2019s performance had \u2019no clear single influence\u2019, says our writer – AFP<\/p>\n

5. Everyone hates us (again)<\/p>\n

I mean, let\u2019s not get paranoid. But, when it comes to Eurovision, our cousins across the Channel clearly hate us. Battle tried to pander to the Europeans by singing in German and delivering lines like, \u201cAll my pounds, they feel counterfeit \/ I need some Euros to counter it.\u201d It didn\u2019t work. We\u2019re clearly still being punished for Brexit although, to be honest, we rarely did very well before that either.<\/p>\n

But, all hope is not lost<\/p>\n

Did you notice the nationality of the aforementioned pop stars who influenced this year\u2019s performers \u2013 Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Harry Styles and the like? They\u2019re all British. And this is where the huge irony of the UK\u2019s repeated Eurovision failure lies. As a country, we\u2019re very good at producing the artists who provide the source material for the contest\u2019s victors. We\u2019re just not very good at ripping ourselves off. Maybe we think it\u2019s beneath us to plunder what we\u2019ve already exported around the world; to get high on our own supply, as it were. But perhaps we should start. We might actually win.<\/p>\n

Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With crushing inevitability, the United Kingdom came last in the Eurovision Song Contest. Our entry \u2013 Eins, Zwei,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[966,21115,21113,20859,20860,28288,21111,15649,21114],"class_list":{"0":"post-45283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-bulgaria","9":"tag-drei","10":"tag-eins","11":"tag-eurovision","12":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","13":"tag-james-newman","14":"tag-look-mum-no-computer","15":"tag-performance","16":"tag-zwei"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}