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29 scathing reactions to the government’s drastic u-turn on Christmas plans

Just three days after berating Keir Starmer for wanting to “cancel Christmas”, Boris Johnson appeared on TV to deliver the bad news that he was cancelling Christmas, for London and the South East, at least.

For everyone else, he was just ruining it.

In response to a fast-moving variant of Covid-19, prevalent in SE England, the five-day relaxation of rules has been slashed to include just Christmas Day, while the SE won’t even have that, as it enters Tier 4 – which is lockdown in all but name.

Wales went into lockdown more than a week ahead of schedule, while Scotland closed its border to the rest of the UK. Northern Ireland will lock down on Boxing Day, as planned.

Having confirmed the five-day Covid amnesty just days earler, the PM was forced to claim that the science had changed, although he wasn’t backed up on that by *checks notes* the scientists, who have been warning the government that mingling households would be a fatal error – literally.

Although many agreed the strict rules were necessary, the chopping and changing and last-minute nature of the decision came in for the most stinging criticism.

Reactions, on and off social media, contained a mixture of anger, relief and scorn. Here are the best we saw on Twitter.

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