Room for guarded optimism - or possibly modified pessimism. I haven't had time to work through this - but at a glance this jumped out at me:

"Amending the Bill to make it clear that entertainers who perform at unlicensed venues will not be committing an offence, unless they have a role in organising or managing the entertainment themselves" - which would imply that if people organise a session by ringing round or sticking it on their website, they are liable.

Not that that part of the Bill is too much of a worry - so far as playing in pubs or coffee houses or whatever, what matters is whether the landlord or whoever is in charge is liable for prosecution, because if he or she is, we won't be able to play anyway.

I get the impression Kim lad is making it all needlessly complicated. And of course this is the kind of input that should have been invited before the Bill was even published. (And the fact that it is needed is a measure of how badly it was drafted, and what libellous tosh Howells was talking when he bleated about the Musicians' Union "misinformation".

"Government plans to set up a working group of key players from the music world, local authorities and the industry" - so who is going to be on that, and will there be anyone who understands how our kind of music works? They should have Hamish, but I have a feeling Kim would blow his top at the suggestion. Or Martin Carthy - or Norma Waterson might be even better.