We can all agree that the Act is now what it is, (even though the draft guidance changes to try and make a sow's ear into a silk purse).

I agree that there is little point in seeing the worst intentions in it but equally there is no reason to see it through 'rose-coloured glasses' or to persuade others to see it this way, as you appear to be set on doing.

The only thing lost compared with the position before the Bill is "two in a bar", which was always an ambiguous exemption and at its strictest interpretation a pretty small sop.

That may be your and the Government's simplistic view - it is not mine. The S 182 exemption did enable a lot of music making in perfectly safe and already licensed pubs to take place without silly and pointless claims about its safety. Sadly it was not used by LAs as intended, to enable small-scale live music in pubs. Rather it was wrongly used to insist that any music made by more than two people made pubs automatically unsafe without paying them for an additional licence.

Subject to any cases of two in a bar that are made worse, the Act is significantly better than the previous situation.

Again, that may be your view but it is not mine. As has been pointed out to you Richard, the Bill/Act was sold to us as making things better for live music. As far as the musical aspects, is more of an unreasoned mess than the old laws were.