LAST Saturday evening, Badger was sitting in his sett putting up his paws after a hard day making worm and grub chutney. Badger flicked across the channels looking for something to divert his poor, fatigued brain. There was nothing on Badger’s favourite channels and somewhere along the way he must have got lost in the maze of broadcasters with names like 5+24+1 (yes, Jamie, that makes 30. Have a green star for effort), because all at once he found the Eurovision song contest. Now, Badger hasn’t seen that particular televisual oddity since Ken Rowlands was last a loyal member of the Labour Party.

Yes, readers: THAT long! Hasn’t Eurovision changed? Whatever happened to bell bottoms? Where were the middle-aged men and women shoe-homed into too tight costumes like so many Day-Glo polyester wrapped sausages? Where was the obligatory song that sort of went oom-pah, oom-pah, oom-pah-pah? And where was the country that always used to do quite well, the one called Whyommonnyee deece pwants? It had all become a bit flashy and sparkly. Never has so much confetti been expended, not even at a royal wedding. The light show was dazzling and some of the performances were, frankly, startling. I did not know, for example, that in Ukraine, singers’ backing tracks were powered by men running around in giant hamster wheels. As a commitment to green energy, that takes some beating. And as for Poland: well, Badger will never think of Poland in the same way again and for some reason has a yearning to visit it soon.

So many of the contestants had the good sense to sing in English, too. Tragically for the French, the lingua franca of modern popular music is the language of les Rosbifs who live over what the rest of the world still calls the ENGLISH Channel. No, readers, the French sing in a language that interacts with the modern world in the same tenuous way as How George interacts with science. Tangentially, and with every sign of pronounced confusion. One thing that impressed Badger hugely was the sheer grim-faced detennination of some of the contestants to demonstrate how pleased they were to be flying the flag. These were people not only having fun, but hell bent on showing the viewers at home just how much fun they were having. When singers were performing upbeat numbers, their teeth were blindingly white, eyes sparkly bright, and their demeanours rather like those of children who had been handed the keys to the sweetie shop. It brought to Badger’s mind, nothing more than the delighted expressions there must have been on the faces of Rob Summons and Keith Lewis when Jamie made room for them at the IPPG Cabinet trough.

Then there were the more serious numbers, sung by balladeers wearing expressions that recalled the agonised, constipated uselessness more usually associated with passing a particularly large kidney stone. The last time Badger saw that expression on a face it was on Sue Perkins’ face when well, when hmmm Ah! Okay, readers: the same sort of expression Sue Perkins always uses; the one that so successfully masks her happy-go-lucky charm and lack of self-righteousness. A bit like Reverend Lovejoy’s wife in The Simpsons. Then it came to Badger: our IPPG Councillors have much in common with Eurovision contestants.

So many of them deliver material that have as much in common with their average constituent as the average Eurovision contestant has to do with popular music in their respective homelands. The Netherlands as the home of Country music, compared to John Allen-Mirehouse (family crest a peasant possibly a pheasant, probably both – crushed under a wind turbine) representing well anyone really. There is an identikit sameness to the words uttered by IPPG Councillors in the same way as there is to the lyrical sensibilities of the average Eurovision song.

There’s a certain sameness to the insincere cant that !PPG cabinet members use to justify slashing services to the bone while making room for more trotters round their swill as there is to the constant burning, yearning and gaming of a Eurovision contestant. How many times can those charged with looking after the services delivered to the most vulnerable sit in the Council Chamber or Cabinet room lying to each other, themselves and the Pembrokeshire people that “times are hard” while they carry on defending favouring well-paid officers and divvying up the proceeds of their racket between themselves and their faithful acolytes? Holy-roller Simon Hancock struck a particularly pious note in the last Full Council meeting. Too much Methodism in his madness for Badger’s taste.

Yes, Simon it is better one sinner repenteth. Pity Keith didn’t and doesn’t. Let us all pray while Simon keeps watch over a series of disastrous cuts to adult social services provision. Perhaps Simon the Saint is just too busy with his other interests and responsibilities to notice what has happened to the adult social care budget on his watch. Up with charges; down with services; shut this; slash that; give Bryn a break; find money to let your chums round the Cabinet table; serve yourselves, not your fellow man; cut the wages of the lowest paid; preside over a pay system that penalises part time workers. Simon is to equality what Herod was to child care. Yes, readers, at the end of the day Simon’s transformation from Labour Party idealist to IPPG stooge is even more complete than the transformative experience undergone by the winner of this year’s Eurovision.