This is all about confidence. The Radio Two Folk Awards are the only major awards we have. They represent us to the rest of the world, and they matter a lot - to anyone involved in promoting folk music, whether as an artist, an organiser, a publisher or a producer.

We need to have confidence in the system - and we have none at all at the moment.

It would be nice if we could feel the awards were fair, but even that's not the issue. The Oscars are not, and we all accept that.

The issue is transparency. So that if there IS anything happening which is wrong (not necessarily corrupt, just wrong) we, or the BBC, can at least make informed suggestions and get a mature answer why, if the answer is no.

But all we ever get is stonewalling - and that's not good enough for the BBC.

I'm happy to see all the nominations there, great tracks and acts all, and fully deserving. And the chances are that exactly the same names would crop up even if the system was different.

But there has been unease over the awards ever since they were set up. And though people have complained every year, and asked for clarification on various points, we've never had proper answers.

The WH issue is crucial (I'm sorry Seth) because for the first time it seems to prove what we all suspected.

We're not asking for change, necessarily. We're asking for transparancy and BBC-standard feedback from the producers - which we have every right to expect under the producers guidelines.

Len

(Shame the Smooth Operations people don't read Mudcat, eh? By the way - I tried to log onto their site to make my comments there, but they require your email address to give you a password, and as they already know mine from emails to their office I'm afraid I chickened out. But if anyone who does have access wants to quote me over there, feel free)!