The following was posted on uk.music.folk. See also Affected by the Licensing Act 2003
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Perhaps this would be a good moment to instigate a petition on the
prime minister's web site.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/

This feature of the site is currently "in beta", and it's interesting
to see how it's being used. The leading two petitions are way clearly
being co-ordinated by well-organised interest groups, and it would be
difficult (although surely not impossible) to muster that kind of
support.

On the other hand, all the publicity I've seen about the "petitions"
feature makes reference to the success of the petition that the prime
minister should "stand on his head and juggle ice cream". This would
therefore be a very good target to aim for. As I write this, the ice
cream petition has 2095 signatories. Couldn't we get above this?

With this in mind, I've created a petition with the following wording:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recognise
that music and dance should not be restricted by burdensome
licensing regulations.

The recently introduced changes in licensing law have produced
an environment where music and dance, activities which should
be valued and promoted in a civilised society, are instead
damaged by inappropriate regulation. We call on the Prime
Minister to recognise this situation and take steps to correct
it.

This is currently going being processed by the "team" at Number 10. If
I've understood things correctly, the petition should become available
at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/licensing once they've done whatever it
is they do.

Please support the petition.

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Dominic Cronin
Amsterdam