A good question GUEST,trevor bond - well, two questions really.

We the public can't vote - they are chosen by a panel of some sort, and voted by a panel (not sure if this is two different panels or the same one). It would indeed be interesting to know who the panel(s) are - does anyone know?

The only one we (the public) can vote for is the best folk song of all time (see the BBC website). I think you can vote for absolutely any song in that. A difficult decision for a voter, and presumably a nightmare to count up the votes for the thousands of different songs that will probably get voted for.