Image Credit: Caleb Woods

Who will win the Christmas Number 1 race in 2020? The answer could be awkward…

There’s just over a day to go before the UK Christmas Number 1 single is announced. As of the morning of the 23rd December 2020, the top contenders for the crown were a varied affair, to put it mildly. The race was disrupted by a late entry, ‘Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt’ by The Kunts, which appeared on the 22nd and quickly rose to second place, where it threatened LadBaby’s comedy charity single ‘Don’t Stop Me Eating’. LadBaby are the reigning champions – if they clinch the top spot again, it’ll be three years in a row. Chasing them at number 3 was Liam Gallagher with his own charity single, the beautiful festive song ‘All You’re Dreaming Of’.

According to the Official Trending Chart, which has an 80% success rate of predicting who’ll triumph, the top 10 as it stands is:

  1. Don’t Stop Me Eatin’ – Lad Baby
  2. Boris Johnson is a… – The Kunts
  3. All You’re Dreaming of – Liam Gallagher
  4. Get Out My Head – Shane Codd
  5. Love Is A Compass – Griff
  6. Forever Young – Becky Hill
  7. Naughty List – Liam Payne, Dixie D’Amelio
  8. No Time For Tears – Nathan Dawe, Little Mix
  9. Gnat – Eminem
  10. Black Magic – Eminem, Skylar Grey

Streams and purchases count towards this year’s UK 2020 Christmas singles chart until 11.59pm on Christmas Eve. The winner will be announced on BBC Radio 1 from 2pm on Christmas Day. As the main contender’s lyrics consist of just the explicit title of the song repeated with key changes and six seconds of the word ‘Boris’ chanted (assumingly Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was too long to fit), it’s unclear how well that will play out on the radio.

Christmas-haters joining forces with an aggrieved panic-buying nation, mostly in lockdown and nervously eyeing Kent lorry queues, might well vent their frustrations by streaming the explicit song enough times that it clinches the number one spot. That would create potentially the biggest upset since Rage Against The Machine won Christmas Number 1 in 2009.