A Footnote in the Evolution of Culture in Britain...(a look back at 2007...)

We, the undersigned…

New laws requiring increased licensing for live music have made waves. On the 23rd of Feb 2007 the official Downing St petition had around 4,500 signatories and a week later that had grown to over 30,000. The undersigned are rising up and penning – or at least key padding – their dissent. Will the undersigned be heard, or will their voices die with the music they seek to save and only the quiet tapping of uniform laptop keyboards be left in place in our public spaces.

“The Government have recently passed laws in the UK to try and suppresslive music and dance. Pubs which could previously offer work to solosingers or duos now have to pay for a special license and can only have 12 of these per year. Even school Xmas concerts need to be licensed…” another email correspondent wrote…Below is a Summary of the New Laws and their effects that has been quoted from an email circulated by the organizers of the petition:
a.. The unlicensed provision of even one musician is a potential criminal offence (although some places are exempt, including places of publicreligious worship, royal palaces and moving vehicles). Max penalty:£20,000 fine and six months in prison.
b.. The rationale is to prevent noise, crime and disorder, to ensure public safety, and the protection of children from harm.
c.. But broadcast entertainment, including sport and music, is exempt -no matter where, and no matter how powerfully amplified.
d.. In the transition to the new regime, bars with jukeboxes, CD players etc were automatically granted a license to play recorded music; buttheir automatic entitlement to one or two musicians was abolished.
e.. For the first time, private performances raising money for charity are licensable.
f.. School performances open to friends and family are licensable - theycount as public performances.
g.. Under the old regime all premises licensed to sell alcohol forconsumption on the premises were automatically allowed up to two live musicians (the 'two in a bar rule').
h.. In December, DCMS published research confirming that about 40% ofthese have lost any automatic entitlement to live music as a result ofthe new Act: 'Very few establishments that wanted a new license were denied it, and many who were previously limited to 2-in-a-bar now havecourse, with the fact that 40% of establishments now have no automaticmeans of putting on live music (i.e. they would have to give a Temporary Event Notice).
'['Licensing Act 2003: The experience of smaller establishments inapplying for live music authorization'; December 2006', paragraphs 6.1.1and 6.1.2 'Conclusions', p54; Caroline Callahan, Andy Martin, Anna Pierce, Ipsos-MORI]. Temporary Event Notice - in effect a temporaryentertainment licence. Only 12 are allowed per premises per year. Theycost £21 each.”

On first hearing this many a person would want to ask “why would they want to suppress live music?”...and the answer of course comes rolling off the slimy tongues of our politicians oh so so smoothly….to protect the children,,, to ensure public safety, to reduce crime and disorder… but just what the fuck is safety then and what is there to protect children from in live music and why was that same government giving the go ahead for the first of many super casinos, which are surely more likely to create crime, disorder and perhaps lead to some of those same precious children becoming compulsive gamblers…which is a fate far worse than the average “pub folkie”, which by the way, you’d know if you’d ever spent more than say 40 hours in one week standing around watching gamblers in a penny arcade become auto-pilot drones in the face of the one arm bandit…

Will we never look into the eyes of the artist again, in the limitless void that seems to await us, can we picture the need that will be desperate then..?

We, the undersigned may object, we may even fervently disagree, but this make not a whit of difference, and this is the lesson that culture in Britain is teaching us, the undersigned; this is what the sham of democracy in this country has embedded in our collective understanding…for we, the undersigned are all too often simply over ruled.