"The problem has never been the question of licensing...

Yes, it was and it is. It's wrong for any Government to make us have a licence for a basic human right. Even if it exercised sensibly and in a way that doesn't interfere in practice all that much, this legislation is still oppressive.

There's a difference between on the one hand having a law that lays down a number of situations that limit our right to do something, and on the other hand a law that says that we can't do it in any circumstances unless we have a licence.

Fair enough to say you can't do things such as make music in a public place in circumstances where this could cause a nuisance or cause danger - but to say you can't do them period without a licence, that is way over the limit of what is acceptable.

A few concessions have indeed been achieved which will make things better than they would have been without the campaign; and it could well be that the guidelines will dictate a softly softly approach generally. But I'd be ashamed to be a member of any political party that had been responsible for this whole thing.