In response to the threats to busking across London, the Mayor and GLA have launched a new busking initiative -#BackBusking campaign which is great news.
Last month I attended a Busking Roundtable organised by the Mayor’s office which drew together, in a very positive way, a number of London local authorities and busking campaigners to discuss how we can achieve the best possible solution for London and Londoners. We are well on the way to agreeing on a new busking code as the way forward in London, building on the Liverpool experience.
But on the very same afternoon, King’s Parade, the winners of the Mayor’s GIGS competition to find the capital’s best young buskers, were being arrested for busking in Leicester Square.
The King’s Parade, who performed on stage for the Mayor’s St George’s Day celebrations on Trafalgar Square on April 21, were interrupted by the police mid-song as they performed in Leicester Square and were informed that they were in breach of section 54 of the 1839 Metropolitan Police Act, which states
“No person who shall blow any horn or use any other noisy instrument, for the purpose of calling persons together, or of announcing any show or entertainment, or for the purpose of hawking, selling, distributing, or collecting any article whatsoever, or of obtaining money or alms”
They were then were bundled into the van by 8 officers and taken to Paddington Station and held for over 6 hours.
This incident highlights the many problems facing buskers across the capital and the pressing need for the #backbusking campaign to succeed. It is hard to understand why 8 police officers were needed to arrest the winners of the Mayors busking competition for the ‘crime’ of entertaining the public.
I have a question down in the Lords on the 30th June to see if we can get the Home Office to give revised guidance to the police to prevent this kind of abuse of the Metropolitan Police Act and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
Lord Clancarty and I will also be putting forward amendments to the Deregulation Bill when it comes to the Lords in June to amend the London Local Authorities Act 2000 so that the licensing of busking under that act (as described in a previous blog last year) by a growing number of London council’s is no longer allowed and the conflict with the Live Music Act’s provisions on the playing of unamplified music in London is ended.
This is a good reminder of, never trust what politicians tell you. Buskers are only useful when it comes to vote seeking. Once the parade is over so is the busker.
Now we come to what to do about that kind of exploitation? Well, you tell us what you think would stop such abuse. For you are in the fortunate position of being in on the game. And therefore far more able to know how to nip it in the bud than us uneducated bystanders.
Hello, Lord Clement-Jones
one doesn’t so much ‘wonder’ as ‘fret’ over ‘NEGS’
i.e. negative legislation & negative definitioning;
one’s schooling having drilled it in that “a definition must be by positive definiens, not negative”.
So if this “Thou Shalt Not” drilling, versus Buskers for instance, needs to claim greater-Contextual constructivity and life-cost-effectiveness, it needs to be subsidiary to “Thou Shalt Love The Lord Thy God” and “Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself”;
{“God” and “Neighbour” here being The Law & The Government, of course};
but surely needs in no measure whatsoever to “replace”, “stand-in-for” or “usurp” all the positives & positivisings that need to be being delivered by more prioritous Legislation, Regulation, and both Collective and Individual Human Development Practices and Curriculums.
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The same “spanner in the ointment” still prevails over Matters of Participatory-Democracy, wherein as yet there is only Competitive Political and Public “Debating” of Needs, Issues and Emergencies,
in a real sense ‘usurpingly’ over cooperative (friendly) fact-sharing and neighbourhood-level ‘win-win-win’ democraticly focused-conversation, discussion, and scrutiny.
[The Busking sub-sector probably needs as much ongoing Quality Enablement as the greater overarching and underpinning Participative-Democratisation, and the latter’s de-facto and privately-constitutionally-prevailing usurper “Benign Individually-Capitalistic Two-Party State Oligarchism”]
But standard Busking might also serve better under govt-approved- “Shingles” titles: such as “Global Evergreens”, “Mood Music”, “Salvation Army Hymns”; to be publicly displayed at each busk-site, perhaps ?