>>>Lizzie - your views are typical of those held by our present (and recent past) governments, in that everything is judged by monetary value, or rather the potential for profit.<<<

CRAP!

Sorry, but if you have a deep talent and you spend your lives working with that talent, then you DESERVE to be able to make a LIVING from that talent.

If you regard music as of so little importance that it is merely a HOBBY, fair enough, but if it runs through your soul and you understand the IMPORTANCE of MUSIC to the world, which is ONLY there BECAUSE of musicians, then you have EVERY right to be DEEPLY RESPECTED for *YOUR* profession, as much as ANY OTHER profession in our society.

Do not DARE say to me that I am of the same outlook as any poxy government, thanks, for I fight against all that they do, but it saddens me deeply to see so many incredibly talented people doing jobs they hate because they cannot afford to make a living, even just a 'ticking by' living, from the very thing they were BORN to do....

The way so many of you see ME as The Enemy is staggering, for I have championed music and musicians for YEARS, but it seems desperately wrong that many others make money out of festivals, whilst the very people around which the festivals are built, receive nothing purely because they're happy not to.

That does NOT make NOT paying musicians morally right, in my mind.

I'd like to see EVERYTHING 'free', if you must know, everything in life, that is...but it ain't going to be that way for a very long time, and meantime, some of the most talented people on the planet are NOT receiving ANY payment for what they could make a living from.

Do NOT undervalue yourselves so much.