Prat of The Week

This week's prestigious "Prat of The Week Award" goes to Cymuned, the Welsh rights pressure group.

Earlier this month they came out in favour of a bizarre piece of small mindeness and stupidity, being practiced by a parking attendant at the Royal Victoria Hotel in Llanberis.

Seemingly the parking attendant doesn't much care for English people, that's nice isn't it?

He decided to practice a little bit of racial discrimination, which Nanny heartily disapproves of, and charge English visitors twice as much as the Welsh to use the same car park.

Should you have been in the "enviable" position of being able to speak the well known internationally useful language of Welsh, he would have only charged you £2; those English people who didn't speak Welsh were charged £4.

The car park is used largely by tourists travelling on the Snowdon Mountain Railway. A motorist speaking Welsh asked the cost of parking.

The attendant said:

"Well, it's half price for Welsh people."

Nanny's chums in the Commission for Racial Equality are looking into the dual pricing policy at the car park.

Tourists and residents who do not speak the language, have already accused car park bosses of "blatant discrimination".

Businessman Philip Wesley said:

"I was completely stunned

because I saw the motorist in front being charged less.

When I raised it with the attendant

he told me the driver had a season ticket

and was therefore eligible for a half-price reduction.

He said all this with a knowing smirk."

Another motorist said:

"This is blatant discrimination

not just against the English

but also non-Welsh speakers

who have lived in North Wales all their lives."

However, Cymuned came out in favour of this daft idea.

Aran Jones, chief executive of the group, said:

"This attendant need congratulating, without a doubt.

The idea of charging local people lower prices

for local facilities is not uncommon in other parts of the world.

This is also a price not just for local people,

but people from outside the area who make the effort

to speak a bit of Welsh in a Welsh area.

I am sure tourist attractions,

which are keen to keep attendances high throughout the year,

would see a huge difference in their figures

if they were to charge less for local people,

who would go through the year.

I am 100% in favour of making measures like this

more widespread across the region."

Evidently Jones doesn't travel very much. I don't quite recall ever seeing the good people of Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Korea, Norway, Finland, Denmark etc etc ever operating a dual charging policy to their tourists.

Why not?

Errrrmmm...simple really, they would drive the tourists away if they did that, and damage their local economy.

Clearly Cymuned haven't quite grasped the basic concept of making people feel welcome, and of encouraging tourism to help the local economy.

Fair enough, if they don't want tourists to go there then tourists shouldn't go there!

It's that simple!

Then they will see first hand the effects on the local economy, when the receipts from the accursed English tourists dry up.

I think the Prat of The Week Award is well deserved in this particular case.