The government is in a mess over its travel advice

Editorial: Should people go abroad for a holiday? The inconvenient truth is that the government doesn’t have a clear answer to that question

Amber sun: the government’s mixed messaging has confused travellers (Getty)

It is fortunate that the British cabinet isn’t a firm of travel agents, for they would soon be getting negative reviews on TripAdvisor. It is not just that the “traffic light” system is inherently confusing, given that “amber” has quite different connotations to different people, but that the additional “clarifications” offered by various members of the team vary so markedly.

Only the other day, George Eustice, the most easy-going of the travel advisers, was happy to get the brochures out for those interested in a break in the amber sun: “We don’t want to stop travel altogether and the reason, as Matt Hancock set out, that we have the amber list is there will be reasons why people feel they need to travel, either to visit family or indeed to visit friends.”

His colleague Mr Hancock has been rather less enthusiastic, and more keen on pushing a vacation in one of the green territories, Portugal perhaps, or maybe the Falkland Islands, for a change.