How rigged will Eurovision be in favour of Israel this time?

That, I'm afraid, is the correct way of posing the question, because there is no doubt that the voting system remains wide open to abuse by Israel's supporters across Europe, who will not only cast their permitted ten votes each for Israel, but will also break the rules as they did in 2024 and 2025 by finding ways of casting more than the maximum allowed votes, and even of voting in multiple countries.

The BBC deserve almost no credit in this sordid affair, but one small thing I will say in their favour is that at least the UK are going beyond the basic tightening of the rules this year to only allow online voting.  That should at least throw an obstacle in the path of the less fanatical Israeli bloc voters, although the true diehards will still find a way.  It'll be interesting to see if Israel are at least pushed down to second or third place in the UK televote tonight.  If they still get the maximum points (and remember there is no way on Earth that they have the strongest song this year), clearly a much more radical overhaul will be required.  By this point, I wouldn't be too unhappy with a return to a jury-only system, or to the juries being given three times the weight of the public vote, or something like that.

Incidentally, one thing that definitely isn't helping the situation is the encouragement to viewers to spread their ten votes between different countries.  That just benefits Israel even more, because Israeli supporters will ignore the advice and vote ten times for Israel, while everyone else will heed the advice and split the remaining vote.

If anyone is thinking of tactically voting against Israel, I'd have thought ten votes for the favourites Finland would be the best bet, because you always have to err on the side of assuming that the Israeli bloc vote will be so huge that they could be in with a shout of winning outright.

*  *  *

Catch up with Wednesday night's blogpost: "S*** just got real, lads. The famously always wrong blogger "Stew", who said there was "zero chance, barring nuclear war or an alien invasion" of the Holyrood election producing a pro-indy majority, and who said betting on Angus Robertson to win Edinburgh Central was "free money", has now said there is "NO chance" of victory in a 2029 de facto referendum. Looks like it's ON."

*  *  *

If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome.  There are three main options: 
a) you can donate by card HERE 
b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com