[Phemist]

Thank you for the additional background! For me as a foreigner coming into the raffle culture, I have no such community associations with the raffles and consider the "naffness" rather more obnoxious. Once I found out that it basically was a staple at these social events, I would act British and leave early ;). That it is related to Church Fete makes the conversative party <-> lottery link all the less surprising!

[dofm]

We do have a rather unusual relationship with naffness in this country! It's very difficult to explain :-)

New Zealand also has the same sort of church/community raffle culture, I gather; very much an export.

The Conservatives did start the National Lottery in the 90s and it definitely tried to hang off the "good causes" thing, but as I detailed in another overlong comment, much of the UK's more disturbing gambling trends were caused by subsequent deregulations enacted by the subsequent (New) Labour government.

[Phemist]

It also explains the UK representatives for Eurovision in the last.. say 25 years (except Sam Rider in 2022). I've wondered if e.g. this year's very very naff send-in (Eins, Zwei, Drei (although, that was not an R)) was a deliberate attempt at an FU to the eurovision, or rather a genuine attempt that would speak to the populace. I'm leaning towards the latter now.

[dofm]

Not a deliberate FU, for sure. Sam Battle simply would not do that. I thought it was both fun and funny. But it was earnest and playful at the same time.

For us Eurovision is simply not something that registers as a serious thing; the years where it has been non-cheesy are few and far between. As a nation we find much (non-scandinavian, at least) Europop quite cheesy, with only a couple of exceptions.

Winning it earnestly is not something that happens when we try, and perhaps will not ever happen again. Europeans simply don't like us enough!

The last time we won was a rare moment in our recent history; literally two days before, a Europhile left-wing government led by a prime minister who spoke French fluently and counted a legendary flamenco guitarist as his friend had just won a landslide, and we entered a band that had already been famous with a pretty basic, stadium rock song. So it was a combination of happenstance and European proxy politics again.

So we enter fun things that better express how we feel about it. Europop often comes across as cheesy but the LMNC entry was out of love for it, not loathing.

We would, TBH, rather win it for something fun like this than win it for something serious. And I think Ireland shows you what happens if you train the big guns on the thing; repeatedly winning Eurovision nearly bankrupted RTÉ, as far as I recall.

FWIW my feeling is that we should quit Eurovision (if the EBU do not end it). Its time has past and it will not survive its current form.