Nul points

Brian Taylor has compared the STV system to the voting in the Eurovision Song Contest, of which I am a fan (stereotypical? moi?).

I disagree with him. Firstly, the ESC is closer to FPTP than STV - all though each nations' votes are ranked, the points are allocated according to ranking rather than proportion, so a song in first place can win by 5 votes in a country and get as many points (12) as if it had won by 50,000. Secondly, the people who draw up our electoral boundaries are obsessed with 'parity', i.e. getting the size of the electorate in each constituency to be as equal as possible, while in ESC, Malta and Andorra have the same voting strength as Turkey or France. Thirdly, the STV system does not allow voters in neighbouring areas to support each other's candidates.

By the way, anyone who tells you that Ukraine will win is talking out of their hat: the potential vote for a drag act is split between them and Denmark. So there.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, the prospect of Scotland being represented by Scooch is, in my opinion, the strongest case for independence since Jemini. If the 2003 Election had been after Eurovision that year, John Swinney would have been elected First Minister, called a snap referendum and won it by a landslide!

Seriously, even I would say 'No' to the guy in the background who screams things like 'Something to suck on before landing, Sir?!'