Trouble with the flock: Eurovision, expenses and sheep

After months of bad news, perhaps we should have expected the Eurovision Song Contest to turn things round. Norway won with a record points score. In a canny political move, which no doubt broadened their voting base, they entered a singer who was born in Belarus.

Iceland, which seems to have had nothing but bad news for months, must have been banking on a good result and came second. And Great Britain recovered from 2008’s twin disasters – of last place in the competition and the exit of Sir Terry Wogan from the broadcast – by coming fifth.

For Westminster MPs however, the bad news continues with more revelations about expense claims. Many MPs may well have reasonable explanations for their behaviour and the full facts are not yet out.

Nevertheless, as the BBC’s Question Time audience showed, politicians are not held in high regard at the moment. There is a public perception – rightly or wrongly – that many have been serving themselves rather than their flock.

As a couple of other stories have illustrated, however, looking after flocks is not the easiest thing. A sporting-minded sheep in Somerset escaped from the rest of the flock and made its home on a golf course. When it was eventually spotted, a green keeper jumped on it as it dozed, quite a sight in itself, no doubt. To make it worse, an experiment in electronic tagging of sheep seems to have been a failure.

Of course, sheep and flocks are not foremost in the thoughts of those of us in urban areas at least. But in the light of all of that, the picture of the good shepherd in this week’s readings should be one of great encouragement and hope. And that’s true even if we feel we have more akin with the sheep on the golf course.

Emlyn Williams