Following George Osborne's 'Britain's open for business' budget speech, the Welsh Assembly has instead decided to tell online retailers in Wales to close on Sundays and Wednesday afternoons because 'this always-open approach is just making our other shops look bad.'
The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones (Mr), explained, ‘a key part of Wales’ heritage is the inconvenient opening hours offered by our shops. Our online retailers must uphold those values – our heritage must come first, even if it is at the expense of the country’s economic solvency – that’s the way we've done things for generations’.
Online retailer Huw Jones, raised his concerns, ‘if on a Wednesday morning we get a bulk online order for twenty flammable England flags, we’re not going to be able to get them in the post until at least Thursday. And if our sales drop due to reduced opening hours, then the manufacturing costs for our authentic Welsh arts and crafts will go up - you can't order small quantities from China.'
Undeterred, the Assembly will be introducing further plans to protect Welsh retailing heritage, including online retailers being able to close their websites for up to three hours during lunch time by uploading a ‘back in 5 minutes’ picture. They must also provide a place for a customer to 'tie his dog outside while he pops over to the online bookies’.
Opposing the plans, Councillor Cefyn Williams (also a Mr), reminded everyone of the Assembly’s last online policy which required websites to be 'bilingual and accessible to all people of Wales' leading most to be translated into English and Polish.
Though, not all aspects of the Assembly’s online plans were agreed – the ‘mandatory playing of local folk music on all Welsh websites’ was rejected after the Councillors reminded themselves what Welsh folk music actually sounds like.
