Every Anglophone journalist should be familiar with George Orwell’s five rules for writing. Or six, if you count the injunction to break those rules rather than “say anything outright barbarous”. But it’s the fifth that’s on my mind: “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”

Which brings me to the UK’s new Eurovision entry, Eins, Zwei, Drei by LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER (his caps). Even those without history learning German at school know that there’s an “everyday English equivalent”. So “everyday” that young children can say it: One, Two, Three.

I know LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER (I’m so sorry) isn’t communicating complex or important ideas to a mass audience. I know that even those familiar with Orwell’s rules might not expect him to adhere to his principles.

But is it really too much to expect that a British entry at Eurovision be titled in the UK's most understood language?

If so, then could we at least have an entry in Welsh? Cornish? Scottish Gaelic? Why German? Ah, but what about the foreign nations who sing in English, snubbing their native language?

That’s a question for them. But it might be pointed out that at least English is the go-to common language in Europe between non-Anglophone nations. German is not.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be so touchy about this if some of the English didn’t have form.

In 1417, two years after he’d battered France’s forces at Agincourt, King Henry V rightly wrecked the practice of royals writing in French, opting for the language of his public.

This should have ended the elite status of French in England, but it persists even today as political pundits and commentators trip over their own tongues to worthily pronounce Emmanuel Macron in non-English despite having largely English audiences.

Still, I suppose if the British Broadcasting Corporation's presenters behave in this way, it’s to be expected that its UK Eurovision pick be named in a foreign tongue.

This behaviour results from disease among English elites. Which brings me back to Orwell.

In 1941’s England Your England, he discusses patriotism in the context of the Second World War and the years leading up to it.

He writes: “In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanised. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought.

“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.

“In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings.

“It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box.

“All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.”

Our Eurovision entry speaks to this. Though I’d struggle to convince readers that LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER (really sorry) is a pillar of the British intelligentsia, it's obvious that the BBC experts who picked his song see no issue with it having a foreign name.

And until a modern-day Henry V forces his way to the top of this largely English-language broadcaster, I fear the wider disease of viewing foreign phrases as superior will persist among our elites.

Even when it’s their job to represent us on the world stage, even with a statue of Orwell outside Broadcasting House, the BBC once again chooses total disgrace.