Where does the joylessness come from? Is there some central authority co-ordinating laws that result in the banning of musicians, artists and poets from British territory, the removal of unregistered tutors, entertainers and writers from contact with British children, or the perfectly nonsensical – and originally racist – form 696 that requires London music venues to give the names, private telephone numbers and addresses of all musicians appearing?
Which member of the Labour apparat is in charge? Is it Burnham at culture, Balls at education or that miserablist at immigration, Phil Woolas? Or is it the First Lord of the Treasury and chief killjoy himself?
When Tony Blair came to power there was a lot of talk about Swinging London – Brit Art and Britpop. Now we're about as swinging as a 1950s Communist party picnic. The suffocating dullness of the government makes you wish for a series of freak but non-fatal lightning strikes across Westminster and Whitehall: something to shock the bores into realising that life is short, times are tough and the government has a duty not to get in the way of art, self-expression, innocent fun and life-enhancing contact between children and adults.
The latest example of the government's knuckleheaded anti-culture stance comes from Burnham's Culture Media and Sport, which last week refused to scrap form 696, a move recommended by cross party membership of the House of Commons Business and Enterprise Committee.
The singer Feargal Sharkey, who has led UK Music's campaign against the compulsory registering of all live events with the Metropolitan police, maintains that form 696 is intrusive, that it hinders live music events and divides fans racially and socially. When the form was first issued to venues it – unsurprisingly perhaps – asked the promoter of the event to identify the ethnic profile of the audience. That requirement has been dropped, though UK Music believes that the questions about the style of music are still aimed at determining the racial mix of an event. For which reason, Sharkey said that the form was "totally immoral, really inappropriate and just a very ugly idea".
There is absolutely no good reason for the police to be demanding personal details from artists. UK Music is now campaigning against the entire 2003 Licensing Act that requires a licence for performances of up to two people. The organisation says that form 696 is responsible for a decline in the number of venues that can host live music.
At the heart of this issue, is not just Labour's great edifice of health and safety bureaucrats, but an essential love of control – a desire that nothing spontaneous should occur without some podgy, milk-faced martinet ensuring that the artist knows that he or she is allowed to perform only at the indulgence of the state. We must all surely long for the end of Labour's regime of permissions, registers, form filling, vetting, barring and banning.
