History examination, summer 3008: Eurovision was the defining symptom that European civilisation faced inevitable implosion. Discuss. You have three hours. Please project your thoughts, in double-spacing, on only one side of the screen.

It may be condemnation enough that one of the enduring successes of a Eurovision contest was Abba. Finland's Lordi, many years later, was a fine counterpoint showing that there was a place on the winner's podium for sheer ugliness, too, that Eurovision was not the sole preserve of manufacturers of candy floss lyrics whirling out from treacly performers.

No one may opine unchallenged that Eurovision has declined over the years. Four decades dominated by forgettable lines and insubstantial tunes have seen changes only in the degree of campiness of some performers and the strategy of each new year seeing acts derivatively basing their entries on previous years' winners. The defining measure of Eurovision cannot be that it has got worse. However, one may measure it as a political failure.

Read the Wikipedia entry on the Eurovision song contest, which solemnly informs that the idea for the event was spawned by the European Broadcasting Union "in the 1950s, as a war-torn Europe rebuilt itself". From this, it may be surmised that a few good people on the continent that had unleashed world war decided that, if only Europeans could rally around a nice little contest over who could produce the best tune, a more harmonious future could be just over the rainbow. You can deny history, but you cannot deny the charm of a catchy little jingle.

It has not really worked out this way. Eurovision is now the disputed terrain of Old and New Europe, East and West, nationalistic voting, and even, so veteran UK television presenter Terry Wogan has alleged, racism by those nasty Eastern Europeans who did not vote for the British entrant Andy Abraham because Abraham is black. Add to that the strife over the workings of the voting system, and Eurovision comes across as Ruritania writ large, the lame-clad, hysterical cousin of that more sober continental project, the European Union.

By contrast, the EU has a better tune (that Beethoven chap was really quite talented but, being dead and lacking a Wild Dances-style set of backup dancers, wouldn't have a snowball's in the contest) and is way ahead of Eurovision, which has seen entries sung in fictitious languages. In Brussels, fictitious language is just what they do.

It is not that Eurovision, that generator of lift music, has never been offensive. Always offensive on the grounds of musical aesthetics, it has found new ways to rub people up the wrong way. Participation and victories by those who have displayed everything from a transgendered state to coy lesbian chic has in turn summoned the demon of homophobia. That Greece and Cyprus consistently hand their votes to each other has long sparked murmurings of Balkan conspiracies. There may be geopolitical lessons in Eurovision, but ones that are difficult to interpret. Those who in 2008 imagine a much-expanded EU incorporating Russia, Turkey, any country from the former Yugoslavia or generally within about 20 000km of it, may not realise how this may all turn out.

It may be fairly pointed out, as it has been elsewhere, that assuming that the outcome in Eurovision is predicated entirely on "neighbourly voting" (Greece and Cyprus are by no means the only examples) disregards the mutual animosities among many related countries on the continent. It is to be hoped that someone is keeping the SMS tallies on record, because it is quite likely that the votes indicate in part the size of expatriate communities in the countries involved.

However, one may safely imagine that mobile phone companies will lobby for voting in the future European Parliament to involve the general populace and the use of SMSes. For example: Veto the Dutch proposal - SMS 1234. No voting if you're Dutch. Certain Euroskeptic British columnists would rather enjoy watching the EU collapse in structural unfeasibility, while for some time at least, shares in leading mobile operators would be rather valuable.

Of course, all of this may be stretching matters too far. All that Eurovision and the EU have in common is that in both cases, Ireland has done rather well.

Those who debate the future of the EU ask, "What kind of Europe?" Those who watch Eurovision ask the same question, but usually with disbelief, indignation and an exclamation mark at the end.

"The awfulness is part of the pleasure," sociologist Steve Aldred was quoted by Reuters as saying in the run-up to Eurovision Belgrade 2008, which may go at least part of the way to explaining why this year's show drew a reported 100 million viewers in Europe. One post-Eurovision article likened it to this continent's equivalent of the US ritual of watching the Super Bowl, an appalling comparison given that, first, the merit of strength, or at least some kind of merit, must count in winning an American football match and second, there is no chance of any member of the Jackson family appearing at Eurovision, thus at least partly minimising the agony and the risk of wardrobe malfunction.

The dubiousness began long ago. Somewhere in the mid-1970s, endless playings of Save Your Kisses For Me were inflicted on us. Considering that the last line of the song is, "even though you're only three", Lord(i) knows how that would be received today amid sensitivity about such references. Those would hear a message other than that of a doting daddy would have had it yanked from the airwaves. I, for one, would have been grateful.

This year, Russia won, with an entry weak even by the egregious standards of Eurovision and reinforcing the notion that even if we need not take Eurovision seriously, we should take Russia seriously. The Russian contestant, Bilan, received a number of accolades, including a school being named after him. Hopefully, it was not a school of music. Patriotically, he enthused, or so the Moscow media reported: "The most recent victories in ice hockey, football and now in music are to a large extent the achievement of our country's leaders who set the good tone and give us force and confidence."

From the first time Russia competed, in 1994, it took them 14 years to come out on top. (Another wound for Portugal, which first took part in 1964 and has yet to win.) Only the Kremlin knows if a Russian victory in the Super Bowl is next on the agenda.

Can there be a final word on Eurovision, beyond the health warning that it cannot conceivably ever be taken seriously?

Only the following phrase, taken from the official rules of Eurovision, which I challenge you to turn into a mantra, or even better, a haiku: A performance and/or lyrics of a song "must not bring the Contest into disrepute".