How the government’s pandemic mismanagement made a mockery of Foreign Office travel advice

The rejuvenated Polish city of Katowice isn’t exactly thronging with tourists at the best of times, let alone in this strange autumn. But I was glad to be back; on my previous journey, it was still under state communist control, eking out an existence as part of the Silesian petro-chemical complex. Today, it is thriving, energetic and an ideal antidote to the picture-postcard perfection of nearby Krakow.

After a diligent trudge from museum to Art Deco church to war memorial, I sipped a cappuccino in Black Woolf Coffee & Books (stylish, friendly and highly recommended on your next trip to southern Poland). But I knew I could not stay long. The figures I was following showed Poland was soon to join the UK government’s no-go list.

International tourism has collapsed worldwide but the slump has been especially brutal for Britain. At the start of 2020, travel was one industry in which the UK was truly world-beating. But a combination of absurd government decisions and simple negligence has brought airports and airlines, holiday companies and travel agents, to their knees.

The world looked on in amazement as the UK abandoned its carefully targeted quarantine policy in mid-March, just as coronavirus was spreading worldwide. Three months later, jaws dropped once more when Britain went to the opposite extreme: regarding everyone coming into the country as a Covid-19 carrier, however statistically unlikely it was, and making them self-isolate for two weeks.

Another handbrake turn followed: all our favourite countries (Spain, France, Turkey…) were to open up in time for the second half of summer. The “low-risk” list gradually eroded, with Mallorca, the Dordogne and Istanbul judged “unacceptably high risk” by the Foreign Office.

The same designation now applies to Poland, whose rate for new infections is currently one-quarter as bad as the UK’s.

The Foreign Office has chosen to trash its hitherto excellent reputation for keeping travellers informed by maintaining the pretence that Katowice, as well as almost everywhere in the Mediterranean, is too dangerous for British visitors – who would clearly be far safer in many countries than they are in the UK.

The FCDO is trotting out nonsense on the orders of No 10. Its travel advice now has about the same credence as announcements from the final days of General Jaruzelski’s regime as the Polish people rose up against oppression. There are many decent officials in the FCDO who know that. But they have lost all power to the cult of destruction at the heart of government.

Yours,

Simon Calder

Travel correspondent