Lloyd Webber - "UK Lyricists Are Crap"

OK, hands up, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber didn't really say that - but he might as well have.

On Saturday, the BBC reported that US writer Diane Warren will pen the lyrics to an ostensibly UK song that will be competing in Eurovision - the cheesy, political, waste of money that even Wogan has turned his back on.

Warren who has written powerhouse hits for Toni Braxton and Cher, is to write the lyrics for Lloyd Webber's music - or is that the other way around? Tin Pan Alley style never did much for me.

Not that it matters.

The UK has a mass of talent and really, what the fuck is a yank (albeit it talented one) doing stealing our jobs? If I were a potential competitor in one of the other competing countries I'd be feeling a bit short-changed too and laughing at us for not being able to produce the lyrics in-house as it were.

I mean, this is a small island - there's only 50-odd million people here!

Surely, if we're daft enough to make a spectacle of a bunch of hopefuls by running a televised competition to find the artist, the same could be done for the words, couldn't it?

I'm sure you could line up some walking egos like Simon Cowell, Peter Hitchens and maybe even Bruno Tonioli to judge whatever our home-grown scribes can get onto paper. Then we could have a national phone-in vote to raise loads of money for the telly company while the result is decided long before the phone lines close.

That would be great!