Old Europe, New Europe

Liberal England sees the changing nature of the Eurovision Song Contest entries as a symbol of the changing nature of Europe.

It is that the heart of Europe has moved east. You could tell that from the Eurovision entries. When Britain's was chosen we probably thought we were daring to pick a song with a Bollywood sound. There turned out to be nothing daring about it. Poor Javine was lost in a crowd of eastern sounds, led by that Moldovan granny and her drum.

Which means we are going to have to reconsider what Europe means to us. For a couple of generations it represented a more civilised way of life. They had subsidised public transport, sane labour relations and adventurous sex lives. Even more exciting, they had proportional representation.

This Europe to which Liberals owed allegiance, which convinced them that, despite appearances, they were the party of the future, was the Europe of the six original Common Market members. That Europe no longer exists.

What we see instead is a more diverse and interesting Europe. Yet it scares some, as the prominence of Turkey in the French referendum campaign shows. You also wonder how long Western voters will be happy to go on funding it - or the song contest, for that matter.

I still think we should have got Mötorhead to perform the British entry. What would the Moldovan grannies have made of that? Probably they're as tough as Lemmy anyway...