Instead of getting itself in a tizz about how to control ticket touts, the Government should be asking why it wants controls. Touts – today’s equivalent of the post-war spiv – may not be the sort of people you would invite into your own home, but they are talking risk and providing liquidity in the market for leisure events.

In the City such people are called market-makers: in trade they are called wholesalers.

The government nevertheless wants a voluntary code to stop people re-selling tickets and is threatening legislation if the code does not work. It has its eyes focused on Ebay, which has allowed everyone to become a tout and saved the traditional touts from plying their trade on pavements outside sports arena and concert venues.

One snag is that anyone who wants to resell a ticket to an event they can no longer attend is deemed a tout – and presumably anyone who wants to attend, but failed to buy a ticket originally, is aiding and abetting by buying.

But the bigger question is to ask whatever this has to do with government. Why is it interfering in who attends “crown jewel” events such as the FA Cup Final or Live Aid? If organisers want to restrict attendance only to those who originally bought the tickets – with all the security and organisational problems that involves – that it their business, but it is not for the state to impose such rules. Especially for events that are so unimportant.

The fact is that if touts can make a living, the tickets were underpriced originally. Rationing is necessary only when demand exceeds supply. Pop promoters don’t even claim they are holding down ticket prices for the benefit of genuine fans – they just get their prices wrong occasionally. If they underprice significantly they can increase supply by adding a new concert date; if they overprice, the touts risk burning their fingers.

It’s a market – just like everything else. And a market place is no place for government.

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