I know this is the petition line but .....

I'm not being despondent but what more can we do!

The Demo sadly is basically flawed now as Hans Blix (not sure on spelling)is reporting back to the UN that day and George Bush will be pushing for us to support him in a war bid! The international posturing has already begun.

SO - Who is going to be interested in a group of (as the public know us) tax fiddling musicians who play in pubs and wierdo folkies who are not part of the real world and include Morris Dancers? The whole of this is overshadowed by the middle east primarily the gulf situation, which do I agree is very important.

Subsequent to this Kim Howells can get away with almost defamatory comments about the MU and others of us, and seems quite happy to suggest that lawyers specialised in the field (who perhaps stand to make a lot of money out of the badly formatted bill) are misinterpreting it. I think it is good to have a controversial culture minister but I would feel happier if he understood what he was talking about, he does seem to be developing the knack of inserting large foot in to mouth on a regular basis.

The Magistrates are not happy about moving the control of liquor licencing to the LAs and see many problems arising. The Govt is not listening to them either - To busy in the middle east.

I 'hope and pray' for a good meet on 27th - I will be there if I can, but currently can't, after keeping the date free for weeks! So back to line two - Where can we go form here - how can we interest the public and MPs in a piece of badly drafted legislation which is far less headline grabbing than XX thousand troops from UK and America being sent out to the middle east with no socks!!!

BTW on a lighter note NO I don't hold with us putting a topless model on the front of the Sun saying I can't take my clothes off for you anymore - even though it might work :-)

I've been really boring and bad and put this on the demo thread too, I think we have got to start thinking hard or we will loose!

A