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Music

Form 696 Still Exists and It's Still Trash

Here's everything you need to know

It's a slippery slope, directly tying enjoying live music to violence. Unless you accidentally whack someone in the face while doing a furious propellor motion with your arms to Skrillex – in which case, people should probably move out your way and maybe not speak to you actually – it's generally accepted that music and violence are two separate entities that do not logically correlate.

Lyrics directly inciting violence through hate speech may be just about the only exception, and even then the lines between a true call to arms versus artistic license blur constantly. Despite this, a five-page document to try and clamp down on crime at gigs, known as Form 696, was still rolled out by London's Metropolitan Police in 2005. More than a decade later, it still exists – and yeah it's still trash, for reasons we will get into shortly.

So, why are we bringing it up today? According to a Victoria Derbyshire programme investigation, aired on the BBC on Monday morning, Tory Culture Minister Matt Hancock has raised concerns with Mayor Sadiq Khan about the use of the form in London – still used across 21 boroughs – in an effort to finally get it revoked. To that end, here's a rundown of what exactly it is, and why you should give a shit.

Read the rest over on Noisey.