UK Parliament folk arts group

Subject: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 03:19 PM

On page 10 of today's Independent newspaper, an article about Britain's traditional music, Pentangle reunion for Radio 2 folk awards, and launch of Parliamentary all-party folk arts group - chaired by John Battle MP, former mandolin player. Nice to see some positive coverage - can someone more expert than me provide a clickie?

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: growler
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 04:31 PM

Not wishing to be rude, but wouldn't it be better for Parliament to produce a fair licencing act, before commenting on the Pentangle reunion, long awaited though it is

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 04:44 PM

Well, growler,yes of course it would, and I did wonder about the irony of Parliament enacting the Licensing Act, but I just found it interesting that MPs who appreciate folk music are belatedly trying to form a group to help it. It's a bit more positive than what Kim Howells said about folk music!

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: bubblyrat
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 06:52 PM

Perhaps the BBC Radio Folk Awards could institute a special award for any member of the Press medium daring enough to mention a subject as obscure and esoteric as Britain"s Traditional Music ?? The Independent would get my vote,just for mentioning it !! Perhaps they"ll come to Sidmouth, Kitty ??
                  Roger....

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Scrump
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 04:46 AM

Being in a room with three MPs - or just one, come to that - is my idea of hell.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 03:43 PM

I think there's an MP who dances with Fezheads....

The Independent article was written by (well, attributed to) Terry Kirby. Its message was that traditionally based folk music is cool and thriving, and there were photos of Bellowhead, Alasdair Roberts and Kate Rusby.

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: bubblyrat
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 03:53 PM

Kitty---Why not try contacting the paper & suggesting that they visit Sidmouth this year ?? At least they will have heard of it in the light of recent events !!

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 04:01 PM

Free bottle of shampoo for every journo...

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:31 PM

I cannot find the article in the Independent online. Most "comment" parts of the Independent become subscription only after day 1 so if anyone can give me the URL for a deeplink I will ahve another go.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 06:37 PM

I can find nothing on the Parliament website either and have emailed John Battle.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 07:19 PM

Richard - I hope your e-mail to John Battle gets a result. According to the Independent, Tom Paxton was supposed to be at the House of Commons launch yesterday.

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Jan 07 - 10:58 PM

Searching the independent site for "Paxton" also produces no result for this year.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: GUEST,Dr Price
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 07:44 AM

"It's a bit more positive than what Kim Howells said about folk music! ..."

Kim Howells, MP for Pontypridd, was the instigator of the mindless and unfair Licensing Act. He hates folk music and tries to deceive and hoodwink Parliament and the public by his own misguided views.

Excuse me while I go and puke blood.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:07 AM

It isn't 1st April is it?

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: growler
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 03:21 PM

Please don't be cinical
Kim Howells always has an answer
Problem with binge drinking- Open the Pubs 24 hrs
Problem with gambling- bring on the casinos
She will come up with the answer to the Folk problem, be assured

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Snuffy
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 03:59 PM

I think she might have bigger problems than Folk

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: growler
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:31 PM

Snuffy, I think you are right

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 05:04 AM

A friend scanned in the Independent article and emailed it to me. If anyone would like a copy (and doesn't mind huge email attachments!) PM me with your email and I'll happily copy it. But it is BIG!

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Schantieman
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 02:16 PM

Some MPs are OK.   An ex-colleauge who was a local councillor graduated from local politics to become an MP: last year he and his wife came to a ceilidh and seemed to enjoy it.

But I DO agree about this bloody law!

Steve

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 02:57 PM

Thank you for the article. Getting it DOWN to readable size was fun. I don't know why these dratted graphics programs won't let you shrink anything so you can read all of it on screen!

Shame, however, that they can't spell JACQUI McShee.

Of course there is the usual strong hint that "folk music" is only worthwhile so long as it is not FOLK music, and preferably is Euro-disco-Celtique as well.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 03:54 PM

Thanks Kevin! It was a 2 page spread, with photos.... and nearly half the space was taken up by the biggest photo, which was the one of Bellowhead! (Who are not Euro-disco-Celtique).

The quote from John Battle was also quite interesting - "This is a music that is very much still alive and not locked in the past. At a recent music event in my constituency in Leeds, I was expecting young people to be playing heavy electric rock and they turned up with acoustic instruments and sung unaccompanied".

Of course the pedant in me is wondering why that wasn't "sang unaccompanied" and whether that was John Battles grammatical error or Terry Kirby's.

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 03:56 PM

Oops, I lost an apostrophe. Should have been Battle's....

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 04:12 PM

I just found Shambles' thread about Tom Paxton.

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 07:30 PM

I assume that should be Shamble's, Kitty.

Although I don't really know if he/she is plural!

Posted as you (unlike certain posters here, what? who?) will realise I'm being light hearted!

See you soon but gawd knows where!

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Splott Man
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:28 AM

Richard, Adobe Acrobat will shrink PDFs to tiny in terms of memory but they're still readable. Dunno how much it is though.

A couple of Cardiff's MPs will be in this group. One, Kevin Brennan, is a fine interpreter of songs, does a nice version of My Old Friend The Blues (in an ironic way, of course).

MPs have had an active but informal folk group for some time now.

Lempit Opek is probably involved too, being a reasonable player of the gobiron.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: BB
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:06 AM

Is that another word for 'big mouth'?

Barbara

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: The Barden of England
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:29 AM

That's being a 'Cheeky Girl' Babara.
John B

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Scrump
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:45 AM

MPs have had an active but informal folk group for some time now

Pity they weren't active enough when we needed them, to stop the licencing laws. Probably too busy singing traditional Transylvanian folk songs written by the Cheeky Girls (yes they are from there, I checked!)

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: GUEST,Train Guard
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 07:01 AM

"Kim Howells, MP for Pontypridd, was the instigator of the mindless and unfair Licensing Act. He hates folk music and tries to deceive and hoodwink Parliament and the public by his own misguided views.

Excuse me while I go and puke blood."

He also thinks that trainspotters are registered. The man is a fool.

Train Guard

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: BB
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 08:19 AM

Oooh! I winced at that, John - but then said MP frequently makes me do that anyway.

Barbara

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 08:41 AM

No Acrobat won't do it because it gets divided into 9 pages of print on the way from paint or imaging to acrobat, and then you get a 9-page document in acrobat with no way to put it back together. I tried that.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 10:12 AM

Hi Richard

Is that a reply to my PM It might confuse others :-)

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 10:17 AM

Correction I searched through the thread for a reference to Acrobat and missed the earlier one. So ignore my posting above

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: growler
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:19 PM

Richard
You should publish that song you writted,that rymes with Bowells. I think that it would sum this thread up
   Simon

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 07:24 PM

I did, on here, years back, and I can't find it on my hard drive right now.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 07:34 PM

Here is the short version

THE FOLK MUSICIAN'S LAMENT (Tune: The Old German Musicianer)

Chorus: Minister Jowell and Minister Howells:
Your names rhyme with "bowels": "How apt!", I must say.
You're changing the law to stop folkies from playing,
Even without any amps or PA.


I'm a folk singing man and I'm here broken hearted:
They're changing the law so that we cannot play.
Folk music and dance might both cause disturbance,
And ain't even safe, so the government say.

Now they're great and they're good are our masters in gov'ment,
Making all kinds of laws for to keep us from sin,
So they've always licensed a public performance,
And pubs that will sell you beer whisky or gin.

But over the decades the law had got muddled:
Kim Howells he vowed he would make it all plain.
Un amplified folk with just one person playing, [and]
Night clubs for thousands are licensed the same.

And a folk dance on May day is just like a disco,
It's all for the sake of our safety you see.
Wires and stages and crowded dark spaces
Demand regulation or might be noisy.

All of these things must be treated as equals,
And licensed the same, by every town hall;
Authorities setting out costly "conditions"
To make each performance quite safe for us all.

So exemptions for folkies are out of the question
But OK for things that Kim Howells don't mind:
Big screen TVs, and all sorts of juke box
And concerts in churches no matter what kind.

Richard Bridge, 2003

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: oggie
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 04:58 PM

OK - so folk music gets a 2 page spread in a national newspaper, just after everyone has been complaining about lack of coverage. So the Mudcat response is 'whinge, whinge, carp, whinge'.

So long

I'm out of here

oggie

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 04:58 AM

I have been trying to get more information on John Battle's group, to see if we can support his work or point him at things to do. So far he is not exactly forthcoming. Email trail as below: -

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard McD. Bridge [mailto:[e-mail]]
Sent: 05 February 2007 10:56
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Parliamentary Folk Arts Group re-sent

All for it. How can I find out more about it - I can find nothing on the
parliament website?

Yours sincerely

Richard McD. Bridge

-----Original Message-----
From: John Battle [mailto:[e-mail]]
Sent: 05 February 2007 11:53
To: [e-mail]
Subject: RE: Parliamentary Folk Arts Group re-sent


Dear Mr McD. Bridge,

Thank you for your enquiry about the All-Party Parliamentary Folk Arts
Group. All-Party groups do not usually have websites and it is unlikely that
much information would appear on the parliamentary website.

The Folk Arts group is a new group, but information on All-Party groups more
generally can be found at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmparty/050902/memi01.htm

Yours sincerely

Martin
Office of John Battle MP




My latest reply:


Thank you. The Folk Arts Group is not on the list yet.

How may one support this group, and how may one press it about things it might perhaps be doing?

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 03:23 PM

It would have been nice if the Independent had reported the result of the Radio 2 folk awards today... but as far as I can see, it didn't!   I wasn't expecting to hear Pentangle or Seth Lakeman on this morning's Today programme though, and it was great to hear Bob Hoskins being enthusiastic about the folk awards!

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: GUEST,chris
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 11:53 AM

I suspect anything to do with arts, parliament and folk would be more likely to have really said 'UK Parliament f*ck arts group'given the attitude to our 'folk arts'
chris

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Scrump
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 12:01 PM

Well, if this group is as effective as most government departments I'm not surprised they haven't achieved anything :-(

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 04:09 PM

The item from the 22 January session, including Tom Paxton singing and tributes from Neil Kinnock and Michael Ancram, was, at last broadcast on this evening's MH programme on BBC Radio 2.

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 05:56 PM

I got passed to Steve Heap, and have had an answer from his PA - which I will re-check for a confidentiality notice before posting here.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Girl Friday
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 07:48 PM

This possibly explains why Neil Kinnock was bleating on on Mike Harding's programme tonight. Len and I stayed in to listen to what we thought would be a Tom Paxton "special". I have emailed MH to complain that all there was was 2 songs, a five minute interview, and politicians going on about how Tom had raised their awareness of social issues...

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 05:29 AM

Neil Kinnock and other politicians on the MH show? Pass the sick bag...

Thanks for the heads up GF - that's one show I'll be giving a wide berth.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 07:17 PM

Scrump and GF

I think your prejudices are showing.

The folk revival in the 1950s and 60s was pretty political, and lots of folk performers have continued to take a political stand.

Are you saying politicians shouldn't be allowed to be interested in folk music? Or that folk singers shouldn't bother to comment on politics?

I'll get my coat.....

Kitty

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:36 AM

No, I think we're saying that nothing politicians say ever has any resemblance to the truth, and that if any "New Labour" politicians had taken any real inspiration from the political side of the revival, we wouldn't today have a choice of three conservative parties irretrievably wedded to the exploitation that is capitalism, with luck Margaret Thatcher would be starving in a labour camp, we might have a welfare state or a national health service or a coal industry or viable farms and our media would not be owned by fascist colonisers.

Robert Marshall-Andrews excepted, of course.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Scrump
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:10 AM

Kitty, of course I'm not saying that folk singers shouldn't express political views. Far from it, I'd like to see more of them doing just that, instead of droning on about irrelevant claptrap like so many do.

And of course I'd like to see more politicans take an interest in folk music - if they had done, we wouldn't have got into the position we're in now, regarding the Licencing Act.

But in the 1950s and 1960s we actually had some politicians we could believe in, to support the ideals expressed in song by folk singers. These days I don't see any MPs like that - if they exist, then they keep a very low profile indeed. The current corrupt government has nothing in common with those MPs you refer to in the 50s and 60s.

So the idea of the likes of Kinnock and other Blairites coming on to the MH show to blether on about how folk music influences their 'socialist' policies (or whatever b&ll%cks they spout on there, I haven't heard it and don't think I want to) makes me feel nauseous. I certainly don't relish the prospect of hearing these self-aggrandising wastes of space giving their opinions on folk music.

So yes, my prejudices are showing, and I'm glad of that :-)

Now, I'd better get my coat before a load of outraged New Labourites arrive and have me taken away for 'questioning'.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Cllr
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:35 AM

as a local political activist/ occasional conservative politician as well as being a folk singer I cant wait to see you at miskin to talk about this Richard (perhaps to discuss it over a pint)

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: Girl Friday
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:41 PM

My word chaps,as long as no violence occurs. Smashed guitars are not a pretty sight... banjos, accordions, melodeons, possibly, but not guitars. I know very little about politician's involvement in the 50s'60s folk revival. I know that Tom Paxton is, or was, extremely anti-establishment, possibly still is. I had heard it said that Tony Blair's agent in Sedgefield was a folkie. Pity it didn'r rub off on Howell and Jowell.

Subject: RE: UK Parliament folk arts group
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 04:15 AM

The following from Hamish Birchall

Please circulate

Hugo Swire, Conservative MP for East Devon, and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has tabled an Early Day Motion expressing concern about the impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on small-scale live music:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=32810&SESSION=885

The main purpose of EDMs is to draw attention to an issue, and to gain support by inviting other MPs to add their signatures. More on EDMs here: http://edmi.parliament.uk/edmi/

If enough MPs sign EDMs can be effective in raising the Parliamentary and media profile of an issue. This EDM is well timed, as in the next few weeks the government will consider proposals from the Live Music Forum to improve the Licensing Act.

Please consider asking your MP to sign. You can send a message to your MP here (the site can identify your MP from your postcode):
www.writetothem.com
It is important to use your own words, but some of these points may help:

* The most recent DCMS/MORI research found that 40% of smaller venues have lost any automatic entitlement to live music as a result of the new Licensing Act ('Licensing Act 2003 - The Experience of Smaller Establishments in applying for live music authorisation', December 2006').

* There is uncertainty about the status of the 60% of smaller venues said to have live music authorisation. DCMS do not know whether live music licence conditions, where they apply, have been implemented. Unless such conditions are implemented by the venue, having live music remains illegal.

* Under the old regime 100% of bars and restaurants licensed to sell alcohol could automatically provide one or two musicians.

* In the changeover to the new regime, all such venues were automatically granted permission to play recorded music, which also allows the provision of DJs.

* The provision of big screen broadcast sport or music is exempt, anywhere, no matter how powerfully amplified.

* The government has never provided any evidence that live music causes significant social harm, nor any evidence that live music is a greater risk as an entertainment than big screen sport in bars.