Hello, YY's husband here.

Perhaps we need a folk musician's multi-denominational (including atheist and agnostic) prayer for the protection of traditions and traditional rights against idiot politicians. A libation to Ninkasi, goddess of beer, might be a nice addition, or to a patron saint of brewers and/or singers and musicians. I'm sure there is one. Invoking St. George (or David, depending on where you live) also makes it more risky to the politicians if the fight should happen during silly season and get dragged into the public domain.

YY suggested a prayer based on "May God bless and keep the Tsar... Far away from us!" (Fiddler on the roof).

Any person of the many denominations (including atheist and agnostic) would be qualified to say it, and including it in a session "could" render the session a religious gathering. (Whereas a randomly selected prayer having nothing to do with music and/or pubs probably would not).

Add that "could" to the other doubts of
- "could" infringe our right to self expression
- "could" infringe our right to freedom of assembly
- "could" be a licensable entertainment, but then again...
- "could" be a participatory recreation (e.g. darts, pool, sewing circle) with no audience or a purely coincidental audience.

That's enough "coulds" to make any lawyer's wallet start to drool. Anyone who has to justify spending public money on sorting this rubbish out might start thinking that the easier and more career-enhancing option is to kick it into the long grass and ignore the heck out of it for enough years that what we do becomes "custom and practice" in the interpretation of the regulations.

Here is a good question. I was in hospital near Christmas a few years ago and a brass band came onto the ward to play for us. Would they need a licence for that now? The patients and staff are kind of a captive audience, so might not count, but the visiting families should constitute an audience of the public.

Maybe they were a religious gathering because some of what they played was church music, though they also played White Christmas and similar. How much religious music do you need to be a religious gathering? How can you say how much without being discriminatory on grounds of religion? The session we are going to tonight always has a gospel or shapenote song or two. Maybe its already a religious gathering.

Yorkshire Englishman
YY's other half