The government’s move this afternoon to change the status of Portugal is a massive blow to tens of thousands of people who had booked because until today this was the one big tourist area where travel was allowed with no reqirement to self isolate on return.

What is causing consternation in the travel industry is that ministers like Shapps are making these announcements without giving the full detail of how decisions are taken.

There is a public expectation that the huge success of the vaccination programme is going to mean real benefits and apparently arbitrary decisions could be problematic. It is very noticeable how the country’s leading Tory supporting newspapers, the Mail and the Telegraph, are increasingly becoming critical of Boris and co.

Have you noticed that it is Johnson who likes to announce good news and his underlings bad developments.

Mike Smithson