Good stuff Hamish! Or rather, probably not that good stuff, but the stuff we need.

But GUEST, (whom I assume is someone with a cookie gone walkabout rather than someone seeking anonymity, so I'll break my normal rule ignoring anonymous GUESTS), I wouldn't panic too much. We're pretty used to operating with a silly law that doesn't get enforced much of the time, partly because it wouldn't stand up in court.

But it might help perhaps if people in America wrote to tourist offices indicating that your plans to come to England and spend enormous amounts of money here are now at risk because you've heard that informal music and singing sessions may not be going to be allowed in pubs here; so you'll probably be spending all that lovely money in Ireland or somewhere. Especially people with Texas addresses, because the tourist people probably think you are all millionaires...

And what would also be helpful, as I said, was information about places where informal sessions in licensed (or for that matter unlicensed premises are allowed to take place without restricted entertainment licences etc. From countries in the European Union especially, because the same essential Human Rights provision applies to us all (and it's not the same as that in America, which is why for example you can still have executions over there, and what counts as protected free speech isn't quite the same).