Ask the people?

What's your take on referendums (referenda?). On the one hand you could say that it's the nearest we can get to pure democracy - everybody has the chance to have their say - but on the other you can say that we elect a government to take decisions for us and that when for whatever reason it doesn't fancy doing this, throwing matters back at us by way of referendum is an abrogation of its duty. It always strikes me as a rather cowardly sort of "covering our backs" exercise.