Splendid Isolation

Seems as though the British holiday camp chain Pontins is in hot water with the Gummint Over There.

You see, they’ve apparently been using a hmmmm social filter when booking people into their establishments, to whit:

Pontins used a secret blacklist titled ‘undesirable guests’ to ban customers with 40 common Irish surnames in a bid to stop Traveller families booking holidays at its resorts.
Families with surnames including Boyle, Doherty and Gallagher were all barred by the company, with staff told ‘we do not want these guests on our parks’.
Employees also monitored calls and refused customers with Irish accents.

Why oh why do they hate the Irish so?  (I know, I know, but stay with me here.)

Discriminatory practices included the ‘undesirable guests’ list, published on its intranet page, monitoring calls within its contact centre and refusing or cancelling any bookings that were made by people with an Irish accent or surname, and using its Commercial Vehicles policy to exclude Gypsies and Travellers from its holiday parks.

Ah, now all is explained.  You see, when (the mostly-Irish) gypsies descend on a place, several things happen, none of them good:

• Petty crime increases (pickpocketing, burglary, bagsnatching and car theft, to name but some)
• Violent crime increases (armed robbery, fights that often turn deadly, and murder)
• Ordinary law-abiding people see all this and leave, often never to return
• When these parasites eventually leave, they leave behind scenes like this:

So to the bedwetters and handwringers:  It’s not racism;  it’s self-preservation.