It's utterly ridiculous because of how inconsistent it all is. We're all aware the pandemic is still here, no one is expecting 2019-levels of travel and freedom.
What's unacceptable is how the UK government keep changing their mind at the last minute, give no clear guidelines on how decisions are taken, and then blame the public when something goes wrong.
I live in Germany and there is a travel update every week, on the same day and around the same time, each time. The way they decide what risk level to assign to each country is available to publicly view online. There are clear numbers and guidelines that tell you when a country will change status. Even during the week, you can clearly predict how it's going to change because they have a set system that takes into account incidence, variants, vaccination rates, hospitalisations and local protective measures - they all determine which category each country belongs to.
All this messing around with colours and shades of the bloody rainbow without it making any sense, or without explaining to people what's the cut for making one list or the other, or based on what they have taken the decisions... it only tells people that they themselves don't really know what they're talking about, and how much of a mess the leadership of the country is.
There needs to be a system that is explained to the public and is updated on a regular basis (bar emergency situations - France tonight was definitely not one), not just when they feel like it.
They need to say above X number, Y% of variants ABC and Z% of vaccinations the country will be green/amber/red/navy freaking blue and so on.
They need to not backtrack on their decisions 4 days after giving people the go ahead to make travel arrangements.
They need to come up with a system that allows people to go see their families in a country with a much safer Covid scene, without punishing them economically on the way back.
They need to start accepting valid vaccination certificates from other countries. It really is not that difficult to read a piece of paper issued by another country, that's actually written in English.
Life is going on in Europe while Boris is fucking up our lives.
This. I hate these political games more than anything and am not defending them, but the UK need to realise how most countries in the world - not just Europe - are taking reasonable decisions and adopting protective measures, whilst allowing their citizens the basic right to leave and re-enter their country of residence, especially when they pose a minuscule risk to the community by doing so. Apparently 'freedom day', whatever that means, is more important than remembering we live in a globalised society where most countries are moving on and coping just fine.