However I take comfort from knowing that, in my experience, people in the folk world are almost invariably open, honest and trustworthy. I also know that most people feel passionately about the music, and I'm quite sure the majority of judges do their best to perform their duties conscientiously.

Exactly. So I think that people shouting about conspiracies and cheating and bias and cronyism say a lot more about their own likely tendencies were they in the position of being a judge than anything else: takes one to know one and so forth. Furthermore, any argument based on variations on "the people I like never get nominated" is completely spurious, like complaining about a record getting a review saying something other than your opinion. Because that's all it is: opinion based on people's tastes. Many people have been nominated and won over the years who aren't to my taste, and many people I admire have never been nominated, but that's how democracy goes folks, when it's your taste versus 150 others.

For all that, I certainly don't want to play dog in the manger and tear it down because I can see the viewpoints of those who say that it generates publicity for folk music and any publicity is good publicity. Certainly better than hiding it away in the back room of a seedy pub and charging 1970s prices to restrict it to 1970s people.