At the risk of adding nothing constructive to an already muddied thread, I have to agree with both Teribus and Diane - Parris's comments are subjective and unlikely to influence anyone significantly (other than to get some people seething). And for every negative comment there is a positive; I was minded of some recent comments by Stephen Fry on his general loathing for dancing, but with a caveat for Morris Dancing because it was done for display and no-one was forced to participate.
I'm afraid the real enemy is, as Diane says, the 'folkies' who appear to Daily Mail-reading middle-England to have come from another planet and who pander to stereotypes with the 'good enough for folk' attitude and who generate a vague atmosphere of a care in the community event whenever they leave their day jobs behind and go a-folking with their laboured eccentricity. They're not the majority, but they're what a lot of the British public will call to mind when asked to envisage folk.
There are plenty of seriously good young musicians and performers who are making inroads into 'non folk' audiences, but they wouldn't be seen dead in a folk club and probably wouldn't be booked by many.
(and now I'll stand back and prepare to be told that I'm wrong by the folk world's equivalents of Comical Ali).