I have discovered that the important issues are the ones that they leave out of their letters. Mr Grainger's letter above being a fine example. For I was at this meeting

02/09/01

Dear Mr Grainger

Thank you for your letter 31/08/01 re our meeting 23/08/01.

I will not reply here to the issues you chose to try and justify, I would prefer to reply in full.
I will wait until all of the issues we discussed at this meeting are recorded, addressed and justified. The failure to do this in your reply, is yet another example of why this meeting had to take place under the council's complaint procedure and after my insistence that it did. Please advise your response, clarification and clear justification of the following. If you are not prepared to, or cannot do this, please change your unjustifiable policy, that members of the public are performers?

1. In the respect of your interpretation that members of the public are performers, I mentioned Brearley v Morely (1899) at the meeting. This case has been mentioned before, but without response from the council. It does not appear to support the council's interpretation. I asked again at the meeting, and you indicated, that you would look at this case, and come back to me?

2. There is no mention of any proposed solution the current local problem, how you propose to deal with future sessions and the other identical, long-running and current weekly music session, without risking its future? I have mentioned this event before and again at the meeting. I am interested in how you can claim to be operating a fair licensing system and treat people equally, by continuing to ignore this event. Or is it, lack of resources that prevent the operation of this 'fair' system? If so, then perhaps these resources should be provided?

3. I requested at the meeting that the equally important part of Lord Bassam's comments be seriously addressed. In the light of your insistence on members of the public being considered as performers, that: "Ultimately, the compatibility of this provision with the European Convention on Human Rights would be a matter for the courts to determine".

The musician's freedom of expression has been prevented at the Cove House Inn, where there were clearly no grounds to do so, by the council's policy and interpretation of licensing legislation alone. The musicians were unable to obtain the PEL. Without which the council would not permit, the musician's freedom of expression, of important cultural traditional music, guaranteed under Article 10. The additional clear justification of why you consider your stretched interpretation of this particular licensing legislation to be more important than the musician's rights under Article 10 and of the qualification, with which you are demonstrating to prevent this free expression, will be most welcome, if not a little overdue?

4. Also there is no mention of our discussions re Morris dancing? This consists of a set group of performers (more than two), rehearsed, dressed and under a clear obligation to perform a set list of formal dances and tunes. Maybe be you could explain how a clear public entertainment i.e. a regular and advertised singing and dancing event, when taking place on private or pub land can be enabled without the premises holding a PEL?

For a participatory session of pub customers informally making music, also advertised and regular but far more resembling a rehearsal than a performance, will require the premises to hold one and be prevented, if they do not?

No so important, I accept but significant, in its own way, there was still no mention or confirmation of your proposed folk festival for the 10 May to the 13 May, to which you were unaware of, at the time of the meeting?