I also take comfort from the fact that with a pool of 150 judges any cronyism, favouritism, bias or outright corruption by a few of them is likely to be cancelled out by the majority. Of course, if you believe in conspiracy theories you'll believe they're all involved...

Hmm, I would have thought that if the reply as I remember it concerning an original song getting to the finals in a traditional category is correct and the nominations are commonly that scattered, it would follow that only a small number would need to be in collusion to give an "entry" a very good chance of making the finals. Winning the final would be a different matter though.