london

Can I just point out too that the announcement was made on Saturday. Parliament wound up for Christmas break on Friday. Plenty of time for MPs to get out of London before Tier 4 announcement. Plenty of time for that selfish prig JRM to get to church in Somerset. I wonder what his priest thinks?

I live close to a second home small town and yes I believe many are heading there

I TOTALLY blame this incompetent government for ever promising 5 days with 15 family members and then withdrawing at the last moment when people had already made their plans, probably already paid for tickets

It was always a total mismatch of a promise by a stupid man who wanted to appear popular by giving people what they wanted now he’s realised it was an idiots plan and it’s backfired he has to make sure someone other than him is blamed
Easy peasy blame the troops.... more divide and blame

Nor is this virus as bad as the war was. Which by the way, there are plenty of examples of people not abiding by the rules then!

Oh FFS Beverley, we are not at war.

Is it so difficult ? and when, since 39/45,have families known the stress and upset of being seperated from loved ones at xmas which thousands in those years did , as now with the present virus.?
You know or should know. ifyou yourself for even once, abide by the rules WHAT is one seperated xmas compared to never ever having another xmas with your loved one /ones ever again.?????.

We cannot possibly blame people for trying to get home, there could be any reasons for their travel. Students in Halls of Residence may be in a block which does not permit 52 weeks per year living, people working in restaurants had just lost their work for the foreseeable future, shop workers too. As far as I could see from the possibly sensationalised photos on the fronts of newspapers, this was a normal number of passengers for the Saturday before Christmas, bearing in mind that on my line, at least, there is extensive rail maintenance involving rail replacement bus services most Sundays, and thus Sunday travel is heavily discouraged. Nobody was breaking the law. I assume also that many of the travellers were planning on this day to travel in order to have their 5 days of pre-Christmas shielding, as recommended. The public did what they were told, in general, the government were the ones who changed the rules at the last minute.

merlotgran

^To be fair to some of those people at the stations, they could well live in the Midlands/North and were returning home after working in London^.

Wouldn't they have travelled home on Friday?

Not everyone has a Monday-Friday, 9-5 job and can catch the Friday night train home.

In the past I had any number of nursing colleagues, many well into middle-age, who worked in London, often staying in hostels/room in nurses' homes, who returned home on their days off.

How many of those on Saturday were extra travellers 'fleeing' I can have no idea, but mainline stations are always busy of a Saturday evening. Indeed many are just everyday commuters/shoppers catching their train to Herts, Beds etc.

The press just wanted to show those selfish Londoners spreading their germs all over the UK.

eazybee

Yes, shocking.
Andrew Marr was blaming the government for 'allowing six, seven hours for people to leave'; were they supposed to have closed the train stations immediately and mounted guards on the streets?
I fear it may come to this because of these selfish people who refuse to act responsibly; 'I want to get home to Mum'.
There will be plenty of CCTv footage; something to do in lockdown would be to identify these people and start taking punitive action.

Why? They weren't breaking the law.

My last post was addressing the op

Sensationalist headlines, misleading photos. Time for an accountable press.

Any manager, teacher or parent would tell you that some people won't ever do as they're told and/or are reckless. Good leaders know that and take steps to mitigate bad behaviour and non-compliance. It seems to me that Johnson wants to be a people pleaser all the time and says what he thinks people want to hear.

Polls and focus groups have reported that the majority of people thought the original Christmas plans were wrong. I wonder whether he would have "followed the science" if he hadn't known that the majority of people would be behind the changes.

I agree with you lemongrove. Johnson should never have made the promises over Christmas he did.

@Trisher, a Singaporean niece of ours at boarding school here had to go home for a knee op that was supposed to happen here, but was cancelled because of COVID, even though it was to be done privately.
She had to be completely isolated in a hotel room for 14 days, regardless of injured knee and the fact that she’s only 17. All at her parents’ expense.

My friend’s son has just been thrown out of his house by his wife. What’s he supposed to do? Camp on a roundabout until everything is back to normal? Of course he’s going to be travelling to his parents!

Trisher it only takes one to break the rules as happened in Oz.

To be fair to some of those people at the stations, they could well live in the Midlands/North and were returning home after working in London.

Wouldn't they have travelled home on Friday?

EllanVannin

Maybe vaccination certificates from those who fly into the country ? Why not ? I remember having to show one in 1974 on a holiday in Tunisia.

There are countries as well where you have to spend 14 days in isolation, in a hotel (and pay for it) if you come from abroad . Australia and Singapore both operate this system. Although some of the measures taken in Australia might be seen as unacceptable here they seem tobe working.

I agree with you lemon, too much sensationalism and not enough understanding. My DS lives in London, fortunatly not alone, so they will not be coming home to spend Christmas with us. However, had he lived in shared accomodation and be facing Christmas alone, in an empty house then I am sorry, we would have either driven up to get him or would have encouraged him to get the train. Many people would have been travelling this weekend anyway, when he was up North at University, he would have been travelling this weekend. Johnson made a massive mistake by giving people the impression that the virus was taking Xmas off. Silly talk of cameras and identifying people, get a grip. Perhaps we should be more concerned about the hundreds of lorry drivers sitting on the M20, in a Tier 4 zone.

Tier 4 here as well, my daughter also in tier 4 is not going to see myself and my partner on Boxing day, and I fully agree with her. Although I must add I am lucky in that I have a partner, it must be dreadful for those who are on their own and lonely.

My niece is at uni in Edinburgh , all her flat mates left at the beginning of December but she decided to stay on until 23rd as she had a job in a supermarket for the holidays. Her parents live in tier 2 . We were so worried she would get stuck there on her own but she has managed to get a flight this evening bless her . So relieved ! Goodness knows when she will be able to return which will cause a few problems with 3 people working or studying at home and a very poor internet in their rural village .
It’s the first Christmas since DH died last New Year’s Eve, but I am so fortunate in being able still be with my support bubble of DD and family even though we are in tier 4 . I feel very thankful and my heart goes out to those on their own , it has been such an awful year for so many.

?

Hmm

Start disinfecting streets/ roads. We're a filthy country. In some parts of Oz when the bins are empties at 3am, the spray wagon does its rounds after them.

I mean trisher and * Callistemon*. This thread is going faster than the Express train itself!

I agree with last two contributors as well, crossed posts.

lemongrove

Although..... it’s human nature and understandable when things change so drastically at the last minute.Many of those people would have had to have spent a week alone in London,
With nothing open, no friends or family to see, when often they have been living alone and working from home for most of this year anyway.
Johnson made a huge mistake in promising five days of Christmas for three households so early....

Your last statement is so true. I'm lucky to be in Cornwall but DH and myself decided not to do the family get together. My daughter and granddaughter stay for a few days as it's also my birthday on 30th. (They're in a tier 2 area) I had severe doubts about the 5 days staying like that and if it did there would be major repercussions with a third wave.

Our thoughts go out to those, as you said, that will spend a long period now so alone. A friend of ours, who lived by himself) took his own life earlier this year. He could take no more and that was 1 month into lockdown.

Comments that go with the videos published should be read. Not all on that station were leaving to stay somewhere else.