There are lies, damned lies, and BBC reportage (been there in another context, too).

Sure, a pub will only need one licence. But it will only get a licence to do what is disclosed in the operating plan it files when it first applies. So if it hasn't filed a plan specifying "folk music on Fridays" it will have to apply again (at extra cost) to do that. The plans, incidentally, will also have to specify all the steps to be taken (in general) to safeguard the community.

All together now - "A licence to make acoustic folk music is an oppression. People have made folk music and folk dance since before governments existed. The requiring of a licence for traditional folk forms is cultural genocide."

How about everyone writing to both their MP AND the minister, and all posting to a copy to another thread first to see who is supporting the folk music we all write about here, and second to see whether anyone has some good ideas we can all adopt? How about everyone sending my post above with the draft letter to the whole of their addressbook, and asking them all to pass it on to the whole of their addressbook, and so on.

Do stuff, or in another couple of years there will be no English folk music or dance, only paid for electric musicians producing homogenised and profitable pap.