[Jon]

"votes aren’t meant to be clouded politics" - a sentence which really does not apply to Eurovision anymore in any sense - politics is always in the show, which is why we always get countries giving whopping points to their best buddies next door - this was one of the reasons why Sir Terry Wogan quit the show, he really got annoyed at the points/voting system and felt the show was becoming too political.

So a lot to unpack there. I also remember Wogan saying a lot of the block voting was done more down to cultural similarities, or people voting for the songs that might have heard on their radio stations. Ukraine winning and Greece and Cyprus until recently always exchanging 12 points proves there is some political voting to an extent. But ultimately it’s unusual these days it’s a dominate factor. Anyway the whole point I was making is that jury voting was bought in with an intention to reduce the effect of that.