A TOP cabinet minister was surprised to discover the world bog snorkelling championship is a real event when he visited Llanwrtyd Wells. Oliver Letwin, the UK coalition government's policy minister, visited Britain's smallest town to meet with local tourism businesses at the Lasswade Hotel. The Conservative MP then called in at the Neuadd Arms, the pub at the heart of many of the wacky events such as the Man V Horse race that have put the tiny town on the map over the past 30 years. After spotting the wooden boards listing all of the winner's of the World Bog Snorkelling Championships in the bar of the Neuadd Mr Letwin admitted: "It's real. I thought the bog snorkelling was a joke." Earlier Mr Letwin pulled himself a half pint of the pub's own brewery real ale and was shown a photograph of Prince Charles also trying his hand at the pumps, when the the Prince of Wales visited Llanwrtyd with wife Camilla in 2010. As he pulled his drink, a relived Mr Letwin said: "It's not very difficult. I rather thought something terrible might happen. I've never done this before." Following his meeting with local tourism businesses Mr Letwin said there were many parallels between Llanwrtyd and his own constituency: "What I've been hearing today is very close to what I hear in my own rural constituency in West Dorset.

"Many of the same issues about tourism and tourism related businesses and transport arise for me very locally in my own patch as they do here. Rather interestingly I come to a completely different part of the country than I was in over the weekend, in my own constituency, and I find very similar concerns. Very different for example to what you find in London or Cardiff.

"We've been mainly taking about how you promote tourism in an area that's very beautiful, which has huge attractions to a tourist, but isn't as well known a location as Snowdonia or the Tower of London.

"It's particularly interesting as this is within the devolved responsibility of Visit Wales (the Welsh Government's tourism body) and hence not a matter for central government but actually very, very similar to the sorts of problems I've encountered in my own constituency because in Dorset we're in the same sort of position.

"It's a lovely place to visit and wonderful things there but a lot of people have never heard of it, so we were talking about the sort of things that can be done to promote places like this. I was learning a lot and hopefully managing to convey some of our experience." Government on tenterhooks over Scottish referendum In this week's Brecon & Radnor Express cabinet minister Oliver Letwin discusses the Scottish independence referendum and what it could mean for Wales and also defends the so called 'bedroom tax' as 'fair and reasonable'. On sale now