The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #81562 Message #1496722
Posted By: GUEST,The Shambles
31-May-05 - 01:35 PM
Thread Name: Pub & Club Licences
Subject: RE: Pub & Club Licences
The following from Hamish Birchall.
'Who is James Purnell?' asked the MediaGuardian in large type last Monday (23 May).
The answer is: since 11 May the new minister for music, licensing, tourism and broadcasting, among other things. But in the two-page feature that followed there was no discussion of his music industry knowledge or musical tastes. In fairness, being MediaGuardian, the focus was on his impressive range of broadcasting industry credentials (including his post as head of corporate planning for the BBC in the mid 1990s).
Purnell's own website lists his interests as football, cinema and theatre http://www.jamespurnell.labour.co.uk/ViewPage.cfm?Page=1721. The Guardian report reveals that he is 'an ardent, season ticket-holding Arsenal fan', adding that this could be awkward when he next visits his Greater Manchester constituency (Stalybridge and Hyde).
Between 1997-2001, before becoming an MP, Purnell was a special adviser to Tony Blair on 'culture, media, sport and the knowledge economy'. He was one of a group of highly regarded Oxbridge educated advisers who 'just cannot hide the fact that they are very, very clever', according to a friend quoted in The Observer ('Labour's New', Kamal Ahmed, 2 June 2002 - http://www.davidlammy.co.uk/da/15759
Purnell and other 'very, very clever' people played, and continue to play in the Downing Street 'Demon Eyes' football team. Members include Andy Burnham MP, David Miliband MP, former advisers Dan Corry, Ed Balls, and Peter Hyman.
1997-2001 was, of course, the period during which the Licensing Bill, now an Act, was conceived and drafted... the Act that kept big screen sport in bars out of the definition of 'regulated entertainment', but which potentially criminalises the unlicensed provision of a piano in a bar, or even one unamplified musician.