‘Exercise in deliberate cruelty’ Senior Tory aghast at lockdown restrictions

A senior Conservative MP has accused the Government of “ripping out” the goalposts on the timetable for lifting coronavirus restrictions in England.

Sir Charles Walker, the vice chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, criticised Transport Secretary Grant Shapps for his comments advising against booking holidays.

Asked if he thought the goalposts had been moved, he told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One programme: “They have not so much moved as been ripped out and carried off to another playing field. It is just not acceptable behaviour.

“This is becoming an extended exercise in almost studied and deliberate cruelty for a nation now that is increasingly anxious and under pressure.

“People need to see their children, they need to see their parents, they need to see the people that they love, they need to have something to look forward to.”

Mr Shapps said it is “too soon” for hopeful travellers to start booking holidays.

“First of all, I should say, people shouldn’t be booking holidays right now – not domestically or internationally,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“The Prime Minister will say more about the route to unlocking this country, starting when he speaks about it on February 22.

“But we don’t know yet whether that will include information on things like holidays, simply because we don’t know where we’ll be up to in terms of the decline in cases, deaths, vaccination.

“And not just the vaccination programme here, but the vaccination programme internationally, because people will be going outside of our borders.

“So it’s too soon.”

Travel outside the Uk for leisure is currently illegal and anyone who has to travel must quarantine for 10 days on arrival back in the UK – having provided a negative Covid test within 72 hours of their journey.

Those arriving from a red list of 33 countries have to quaratine in a hotel room at a cost of £1,750.