It’s good Eurovision won’t be held in London – the North deserves this

Hosting it will mean more to the North than it would to southeners

Finally, the shortlist has been announced: which UK city will host Eurovision 2023?

Is it going to be (drum roll... ) Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool or Newcastle? I’m biased as I grew up “north of the wall” (as Londoners like to put it) but Geordies know how to party. I’m rooting for Newcastle.

Because Ukraine was due to be next year’s hosts, until organisers decided against it given the ongoing war, excluding London from the list has been understandably controversial as it is home to the most number of Ukranians in the UK. Sadiq Khan said it “clearly has to be” the capital.

But clearly it doesn’t. It’s going to be somewhere in the North, and I don’t think that should be a sticking point.

Eurovision isn’t about getting tickets and being in the arena in the thick of the action. It’s about a communal atmosphere. It’s about connection: with other countries, or on a far more basic level with your family and friends over some nibbles and a few drinks at your annual Eurovision party in your living room. It’s about humanity’s shared love of music, especially at a time of such great division. It’s about all dancing to the same song, for once. Without running the risk of sounding like a bedraggled hippy, it’s about spreading the love.

But although Eurovision really isn’t about which arena the contest is in, hosting it will mean far more to northerners than it will to southerners. It will bring money to regions most struggling to cope with the cost of living crisis, which has widened the North-South divide by 30 per cent.

It will put a middle finger up to a government that has harped on for years about leveling up without actually achieving anything. It’s saying “look what we can do” to a government that never looks up, to the point that they don’t know anything about the North. Like in May when Boris Johnson tweeted that he was in Teesside campaigning for local elections when he was actually in Tyneside. Same difference, eh?

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

And how exciting, when London is always the home of the big concerts and world events, to bring the arts up north. It will show Europe that the UK isn’t just the Scottish Highlands, the Cotswolds and London. Maybe tourists will begin to appreciate that, too.

What’s more, I could be biased, but there’s a reason everyone says northerners are the friendliest people in the UK – because they are. Even with all the crap that’s flung at them on a massive catapult from the cosy confines of London year after year, their smiles are the most genuine and their laughter the heartiest.

I don’t know about you, but these are the kind of people that I reckon can host the most unforgettable party for Ukraine.

So if the government won’t spread the love north of the M25, then it’s about time someone else did. The BBC said the shortlist is based on "the capacity, capability and experience” of these cities “to host an event of this scale and complexity".

Well come on, let’s show this southern-centric government what northerners are made of. Because if they can survive these Tories, a little music concert is a walk in the park.