Bit of a non-row this thread really, not sure that people have fully listened to what Steve Shaw is trying to say, or that Steve Shaw fully listened to what Eliza Carthy had to say.
   Anyway,I would like to raise a couple of related points. Ruth Archer makes a great deal of the posh people who make up the classical world, and the common people who make up the folk world. In fact, that split seems to be the whole thrust of her argument. I think that is largely wishful thinking, making up facts to fit a theory. Now, I know people in Bellowhead, and I know classical musicians, not to mention lots of other genres. I do not honestly think there is that much difference between the average cultural and social backgrounds of those in Bellowhead, and those in the Halle orchestra or whatever(or at least in the backgrounds of the classical players of comparable age to Bellowhead). Folk music obviously originally came from, on average, a lower social class than did classical. But the current practitioners of folk-related music(or at least those selected to be at the proms)are converging, as regards class, with the classical world.
    Obviously I am speaking generally, there are some working class classical people, as there are working class young folkies.But times have changed.
    My other, and very similar point, is that it is great there is a folk day at the proms, but it is only a start. There has always been some folk related stuff available in the "respectable" music world. Composers and performers have often chosen to perform, and experiment with, folk related material: they do this in music, as they do in the visual arts world, or in literature. The folk revival of the 50's and 60's did this and has developed into the "folk scene" of today. But the real breakthough will occur when "actual" folk music is shown and made available in these settings, on an equal footing with the processed and reworked and developed versions. Then we shall really see some eyes being opened!