BBC on pub carols tradition - catch it

Q;You couldn't turn a blind eye to it?

A;We couldn't turn a blind eye to it.

Q;Do you recognise though, would you have preferred to have turned a blind eye to it?

A;Err, I'm don't turn a blind eye to any situation that could put the public at risk.

That was Jill Haines, chairwoman of the West Dorset District Council, interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme 20th December. She was trying to justify why the council had prevented a traditional mumming play, in two local pubs, that did not have Public Entertainment Licenses (PELs).

These two pubs, and many others have been hosting these plays for all the years that the law, the council claims is preventing them now, has been in existence!

The current entertainment licensing legislation that allows the above hypocrisy, is bad legislation. It is due to be replaced by equally bad if not worse legislation and even more hypocrisy.

Only 5% of licensed premises currently hold PELs. This is the only way that any live musical activity, that is not specifically exempt from the requirement, can legally take place.

Council's claim (like the above example) that they do not turn a blind eye, and for them to do so would be not only illegal but would place the public at risk.

We all know of many activities that would be considered by these local licensing authorities as public entertainment, and which is taking place in the 95% of premises that do not have PELs.

It is quite clear that licensing authorities are in fact turning a blind eye and as a result, they are ignoring the law and placing the public at risk. A fact, if made public, that will badly embarrass both them and the Government who are championing local authorities as being safe to take responsibility for all licensing under the Bill.

Government are bad enough by pressurising the local authorities for funds, but it is the latter who have made such mess of things, with many examples of patchy and petty enforcement, by placing unreasonable conditions and using the licensing regime to raise revenue. Not that there is any evidence of this reflected in the Bill.

But it is the demonstrable fact, that local authorities have been turning the blind eye, that is the 'Achilles heel' and does present many opportunities for us to demonstrate the poor quality of the current legislation and of the new. For if their defence will be that they do not have the resources to find all unlicensed entertainment, the question must be posed how they are to carry out their proposed increased responsibilities any better, and why we should trust them to do this?

It is difficult to exploit this blind eye issue and expose local councils for not following the law and placing the public at risk, without placing at risk both the activity and the licensee, however.

It really is the fault of councils who just turn a blind eye (until the point they claim they cannot), that give the current legislation a respectability it does not deserve and have made changing it so difficult.

This is most probably the last year annual events like mumming plays and in particular the pub carols in south Yorkshire and Derbyshire, will be taking place under the current legislation and these events at best, face an uncertain future under the new Bill.

The pubs that stage these annual events without PELs, but do not hold any other musical activities that would be risked, can now be safely used (preferably with the licensee's permission), as very effective evidence of the complete sham that the current legislation is. And of the totally bogus defence made for the continuing of blanket entertainment licensing, made by both Government and local authorities.

As there is now very little to be lost (only in the pubs I refer to), I feel the opportunity must be used before it is too late! For the fact remains that these activities are just as illegal in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire and the public made just as unsafe, by the councils involved tuning a blind eye, as anywhere else.

Unless these councils are prepared to stand up publicly and state the opposite? Or our current Home Secretary Mr Blunkett is going to explain why the pub carol events he attended were not illegal 'raves'?

Perhaps it could be arranged that some journalist could ask him?