This nation was once a force to be reckoned with. Thanks to victories from Sandie Shaw, Lulu, Brotherhood of Man, Bucks Fizz, and Katrina and The Waves, the UK ranks joint second in the all-time Eurovision Song Contest winners league. Only Ireland has won it more often (seven times). But our last victory, courtesy of Katrina and co, was way back on May 3, 1997. That was Tony Blair's first full day as Prime Minister. That's an extremely long time ago.

Andy Abraham - the former dustman limbering up to represent us at the 2008 final in Belgrade on Saturday - is under no illusions about his chances. “I believe the song is good enough for a top ten. Anything more than that...well, if I win, I'll probably collapse on the floor.”

This may not sound like much of a Positive Mental Attitude, but Abraham would be right to be cautious about his prospects. Although, if anything, he's talking them up. Because in the 11 contests since 1997, the United Kingdom has won a spot in the top ten only twice (Imaani, second place in 1998, and Jessica Garlick, third in 2002). In 2003 came the ignominy of our first ever “nul points”, courtesy of Jemini's Cry Baby. Our highest place since then was 16th. These have been lean years for Britain.

It was last year's dismal showing from Scooch (Flying the Flag (for You) came second last) that proved too much even for Sir Terry Wogan. As Serbia romped to victory the great man mused: “We need to build a wall.” Sir Terry was referring to block voting, the phenomenon whereby clusters of countries vote for each other to boost their chances of success. The trend has been fuelled by the rush of new nations flocking to Eurovison in the aftermath of perestroika. It has transformed the Eurovision balance of power. Since 1999 every winner has been a member of a Euro voting block. Former titans, including Britain and many other Western European nations, have been relegated to Eurovision midgets.

Dr Derek Gatherer is a data analyst based in Glasgow, whose hobby is computer analysis of the voting patterns in Eurovision. His snappily named paper Comparison of Eurovision Song Contest Simulation with Actual Results Reveals Shifting Patterns of Collusive Voting Alliances, published two years ago in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Stimulation, provided the first evidence that, when it comes to Eurovision, the UK is now on the outside, looking in.

“Statistically it is significant,” he says. “Countries are exchanging votes with each other.” Whether this “craze behaviour”, as Dr Gatherer calls it, happens because the block members have similar musical tastes and cultural affinities, or is simply because they want to vote for their neighbours is a moot point. What matters to our prospects of victory is that they are doing it.

Dr Gatherer identifies three voting blocks. The “Viking Empire” or Nordic Block has eight members; Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The Eastern Block also has eight members: Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Poland, Belarus, Moldova and Romania.

The most potent block, 11 nations strong, is the Balkan Block. Its heart is the former constituents of Yugoslavia; Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and FYR Macedonia. Also part of the block are Turkey, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Hungary. “This one is slightly bipolar,” says Dr Gatherer. “And once you have more than ten members there is the danger that some are going to feel aggrieved because each country can only vote for ten others, so someone's going to be left out.”

If only we had a problem like that. Although Ireland and the UK have a blockette of their own, one ally isn't enough to break the block voting handicap. When Scooch came second last, it was Ireland they beat. But it later emerged that we beat Ireland at all only because Malta, which awarded Scooch 12 of its 19 points, voted for us as a protest vote against the iniquities of block voting. It didn't really rate Scooch: it doesn't really love the UK.

Wounded, a Lib Dem MP called Richard Younger-Ross took things a little too far and tabled an Early Day Motion branding the contest “a joke, as countries vote largely on narrow nationalistic grounds or for neighbour countries rather than the quality of the song, and such narrow voting is harmful to the relationship between the peoples of Europe”. He called “for the BBC to insist on changes to the voting system or to withdraw from the contest”.

Eurovision is a trivial competition that reveals a truth that some Britons find profoundly uncomfortable: Europe, or at least the nations that participate in the competition through the auspices of the European Broadcast Union, doesn't care for us all that much. It's not just the United Kingdom that is feeling the effects of block voting; other European countries not included in the Eastern family have had their egos offended too. Scooch won second to last place only because of that protest vote from isolated Malta, which doesn't even have Ireland on its side. Ireland itself has had a torrid run recently - and this year, Wogan's motherland won't even be in the final.

Its entry, a lecherous puppet turkeynamed Dustin, who has performed with Irish greats including Sir Bob Geldof and Chris de Burgh, failed to make it through the first semi-final on Tuesday night. Dustin's number, Irelande Douze Pointe, was effectively a Eurovision protest song, exhorting the Continent to end the Emerald Isle's years in the cold. It fell on deaf ears and was, according to reports from Belgrade, even booed by “Eurovision purists”.

Ireland tried to break the block-vote deadlock with comedy. Austria simply stormed out in a huff. When it was announced that even the losers of the two semi-finals would be able to vote in this year's final - thus setting the scene for all the block-vote regulars to douze points for each other with their usual abandon this weekend, Austria threw an almighty wobbly. ORF, its national broadcaster, regally announced that it was orf. “ORF is not prepared to send further talents to participate in a hopeless cause while the contest remains an arena for political manoeuvring.”

Germany is getting frustrated too. Nicole, Germany's only Eurovison winner, reacted to Serbia's win last year by telling Bild: “It is obvious that Eastern European countries engage in dirty trade with points every year. Germany should withdraw from the competition.” Were Germany or the UK to do an Austria, it would be much more of a blow to Eurovision. We are one of the so-called “Big Four”; along with Germany, Spain and France, the BBC contributes around 40 per cent of the cost of the contest. In return, we get automatic qualification for the final. As Svante Stockselius, Eurovision's executive supervisor, says on the contest's website: “If these four countries would not participate, the fees for the other, smaller countries would be so much higher that many might have to stay out because of financial reasons.”

Sir Terry is on holiday now, getting his fettle up for Saturday. But, in an interview published this week in the Radio Times, he uttered more dark comments about the effects of block voting: “Andy Abraham's song is the best UK entry for a while: if we finish nowhere again, I worry that disenchantment might take hold.” Sir Terry hints that the new block-voting nations of Eastern Europe might chase the UK out of Eurovision, but many believe that without them the contest would have quietly died years ago.

While Sir Terry renders Eurovision palatable to British audiences by drenching it in a Bailey's Irish Cream-flavoured marinade of irony, the new Eurovision members wolf it down unseasoned. They love it as is, and take it deadly seriously. Dana International, the Israeli transsexual who won in 1998 and who has written this year's Israeli entry, said this week: “They took over the competition and because of them Eurovision still exists. They treat it with the respect that Western Europe treated it with years ago.” Dr Gatherer says: “They still have some of the original spirit of the Eurovision Song Contest. You can either mock Eurovision or you can take it deeply seriously. But you probably can't do both simultaneously.”

Should stoic Andy Abraham's self-penned Euro entry, Even If, fail to make the top ten this year, the block-voting recriminations will begin anew. As Duncan Watts, Australian-born professor of sociology at Columbia University, wrote in The New York Times after Scooch-gate: “The large, industrialised nations magnanimously invite their poorer but more numerous eastern cousins to join their party, and offer to pay the bill, only to discover themselves locked out in the garden while their new friends complain about the quality of the liquor and the arrogance of the hosts.”

But Andy, who is about to release an album, probably won't be too offended should he fail to win; he knows that on Saturday 100 million Europeans will see him perform. That's priceless exposure for a former runner-up on The X-Factor . And at the same time, around 11 million Britons will relish - albeit via a mechanism of incredulous ridicule - songs from some new European neighbours that many of us have barely registered. To suddenly stop seeing the joke, to storm out of Eurovision in a huff would be pathetic. We should treat it like Wimbledon: a fantastic spectacle that we have only the slimmest chance of ever winning again. Let's not get a persecution complex about something as unserious as Eurovison. Let's not do an Austria.

“As far as I'm concerned about the whole so-called block voting, there's not really a lot that I can do about it,” says Andy. “So my philosophy is get out there and perform my arse off, basically.”

How Britain struck a bum note

Pete Paphides

They exaggerate, but then, isn't that the job of The Sun? Despite what the red-top says, Andy Abraham's Eurovision 2008 effort, Even If, isn't our worst-ever effort. The singing binman would have had to enlist six dentists' drills if he wanted to outcrap Scooch's Flying The Flag (for You), but - of course, he won't win. We won't win. We can't win. Not this year. Not ever. And here's the strange paradox. Now that we can't, it bothers us - yet back when we could, we were strangely aloof about it.

Once upon a time, British Eurovision winners entered the contest under no illusions about the Faustian trade-off it represented: your cool in exchange for the career boost that the huge international coverage might trigger. Our aloofness was a corollary of the fact that - Abba aside - we knew that we were better at pop than all the other European nations put together. We could afford to treat Eurovision like a joke. Even in the years when we submitted decent if cheesy fare by the likes of Cliff Richard, Coco and Bardo, we knew that our songs were still better than everyone else's.

Now, much of the best pop music is made in mainland Europe. Some of it is even officially represented in this year's contest - for instance, the French pop star Sébastien Tellier with the arpeggiating Beach Boys thrill of Divine. The roles have been reversed. Where once we used to laugh at the attention-grabbing antics of Çetin Alp & The Short Waves (1983) or the Greek lot who dressed up as Charlie Chaplin (1981), the likes of Scooch and Jemini (nul points in 2003) and Daz Sampson (laughing stock in 2006) have reduced us to the same level. Just like our national football team's inability to seize the glory in the penalty shoot-out, it all rather smacks of knowing our place, deep down, in the modern world.

But even as recently as last year, it didn't have to be like this. Famously, Morrissey briefly showed an interest in representing the UK. It could have been a masterstroke. His default take on Britishness accords with the view that the rest of Europe has of us. Now Eurovision is a public vote, his fanbase alone would have ensured victory, whatever the song was like. Incredibly though, he was told he would have to compete with the likes of Scooch and Justin Hawkins for his place.

For heavens sake! Any other country would have said to hell with the rules and fast-tracked him directly in to the contest. And, so, one of the greatest British songwriters of the last 25 years withdrew his offer. Heaven knows we're miserable now.

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

Editor's choice

• Burning Bush with W
• Revolution at the new Saatchi Gallery
• Boy George on sex, drugs and Amy Winehouse