I've worked on polling booths in general elections and also the 1995 referendum on not reducing the numbers of firefighters.

While general elections brought in hundreds of people, the firefighters referendum managed to only inspired a trickle of people to give up part of their Saturday and come along to the local primary school hall.

I've never been impressed with those CIRs, mainly because the wording tends to be really emotive. I never got the point of the referendum wanting parliament to be reduced to 99 politicians - why is more than 99 a bad thing? Do we really want our local MP to have more work to do and less time to dedicate to our electorate?

CIRs may be opinion polls at public expense, but without the accuracy that professional polling companies strive to achieve!

P.S. Loving the Hanky Panky soundtrack!