Piers Morgan has blasted the government for failing to show leadership with its messaging over Christmas Covid plans.
Number 10 has faced increasing pressure to review its decision to allow three households to bubble up between 22 and 27 December, due to a fresh spike in coronavirus cases.
Urgent talks between Michael Gove and the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland broke up on Tuesday without agreement on a new strategy.
Instead, PA Media reported that leaders are trying to agree on new safety warnings, amid suggestions from officials and ministers that people should be more careful than the rules allow.
Piers slammed the mixed messaging on Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain, raging: “All we’re getting on Christmas is the government saying, ’all get together at Christmas, but maybe don’t all get together at Christmas’. It’s the worst kind of mixed message imaginable from a government that seems incapable of not talking in complete mixed messaging. All it does is confuse people.
“I don’t know anybody now who really understands whether the government wants them to get together with their families or would prefer them not to. It’s a failure of leadership.”
Piers’ co-host Susanna Reid tried to counter the argument, saying: “I think the government is dealing with a stark reality that people are going to get together at Christmas and they do not want to criminalise people who simply want to see their elderly mum or dad, and they don’t want police officers going round saying, ‘how many bubbles have you got?’
“That’s what they’re doing – they’re making a pragmatic decision which is about we don’t want to criminalise, and within that, they’re telling people to minimise contact.”
Piers disagreed, continuing: “We don’t do that with anything else, do we? When people were dying from drink driving in cars, we didn’t say, ‘well, people are going to do it anyway’ – we told people you can’t do it. And sometimes, you have to say that this is going to save lives if you don’t do it, so you can’t do it, and they’re doing it in Germany, the Netherlands and others.
“Here, no one knows what the government now wants to do.”
The proposals being discussed by leaders could include guidance for people to consider whether they should meet elderly or clinically-vulnerable loved ones and to stress that the rules are a limit and not a target.
The talks took place after two leading medical journals warned that a lessening of restrictions would “cost many lives” and the British Medical Association (BMA) echoed Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in demanding an urgent re-think.
The YouGov survey of 3,856 adults on Tuesday indicated that 57% believe the plans should be dropped and that current rules should remain in place during the festive period.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.