Err - that was Howells spinning again.

1. He still refuses to exempt unamplified music from the bill - but will exempt big screen TV, juke boxes and DJ's without dance floors.

2. He just wanted the MU to stop opposing the bill and to sign up to support it when it will impose regulation on one or two perfomers in 100,000 premises where music under the "2-in-a-bar" rule is exempt, merely because they could sit on a committee offering input (which HOwells did not have to accept) into the guidance to which (Clause 4(3)) local authorities must have regard. Check that. Not that they must obey, but to which they must have regard and from which (I add) they may depart unless they do so irrationally.

3. Howells 20 facts are almost all wrong. My Performer-Lawyer group has demolished them and published our reasons (unlike Howells who merely asserts he is right and the lawyers are wrong)

4. Happily the MU has refused to be Howells lapdog and is I think planning its own press release.