" If you see an aside about Ed Sheeran as my views on Folk Clubs there really is no hope."
I don't Dave - you weren't the fanzine who raised him as a comparison to traditional singers

"I notice too that in the printed album of eleven titles the traditional songs are sometimes labelled "music arranged by" and "words and music arranged by".
THat is commonplace with folk song nowadays
John Reilly's ' Well below the Valley is now copyrighted by musician, Phil Coulter
Ironically, John, an impoverished Traveller was taken from a derelict house in Boyle and taken to hospital, where he died of malnutrition

"But not, perhaps, by releasing an EP with two songs written by MacColl and two written by Alan Lomax,"
You can't resist taking a poke at those dead devotees who set this music on the road, can you?
Seeger, MacColl and Lloyd were instrumental in creating a revival that lasted for decades - MacColl alone breathed life int 175 of the Child ballads, hundreds of Scots and English folk songs and made at least 300 songs using folk forms
He and others helped build up the edifice that your friends are now attempting to tear down
Lomax if renowned throughout the world for his contribution to world traditional music
However they sang six decades ago, it was vastly superior to the pretty-pretty breathy little-girl singing that Steve Roud seems to regard as good singing - go and look them up
HERE'S ONE
AND ANOTHER

I'd stick to knocking dead singers and your "foot-tapping ballads" if I were you

Jim Carroll