The bit preceding being:


RB: Well... Dave Eyre has another point, he thinks that the 150 people who vote on the short lists might not be entirely independent, and his answer is why not make the process transparent. You know, so for example we.. there.. we would know the numbers of votes cast, first for the nomination and then for the selection that put it first, second or third and how many votes it takes to get nominated and so on.. would you be that transparent?

JL. Um.. possibly. I mean we.. we have about 150..

RB: Ohh. Well what would persuade you, what would persuade you then?

JL: Let me tell you how we do it first of all, 'cause that's not quite accurate. There are about 150 people that we invite to vote, and round about 80% of them do, and they are drawn from people like: broadcasters; journalists; agents; record companies; people who run festivals, peoples whose job it is to make decisions about folk music during their daily..

RB: And can you be sure they are entirely independent?

JL: No, some of them are not entirely independent. That, you know, because obviously if we go to, its a very small community, and so if we go to a record company...uh.. they might vote for their own people. So we did a very interesting exercise this year. We looked at last years results and took out the votes of all the people who could be said to have a vested interest, and it made virtually no difference at all. Uh, people are very honest when they vote.

RB:But if people are very honest, then why not just let it be transparent and give the information, put it on your notice board and then everybody can see who voted for what, why and, presumably, end of controversy.

JL: I don't, the reason that I don't publish a list of the people who vote, because I think it would focus attention on them and the better off performers would be able to lobby for their votes.