Boris Johnson to avoid travel traffic light chaos with UK holiday

The Prime Minister and Carrie Johnson have planned a staycation, say sources

Boris and Carrie are opting for a staycation (PA)

Boris Johnson will be holidaying in the UK this summer, avoiding his government’s confusing and ever-changing traffic light system for international travel.

A senior government source confirmed to The Telegraph that the prime minister and his wife, Carrie Johnson, will opt for for a staycation, although the exact destination is yet to be announced.

The next review of the complex tangle of travel rules is expected tomorrow, 5 August, with government ministers suggesting a simplification of the traffic light system that governs the measures for Brits returning from foreign destinations.

The PM said earlier this week that he wanted to keep a “simple”, “user-friendly” system for foreign travel.

Plans for an “amber watchlist” have fallen by the wayside, and experts are predicting that the “amber plus” category and “green watchlist” may also be shelved in an attempt to streamline the system further.

Boris and Carrie Johnson are far from unique in deciding that a domestic holiday is a safer bet this year.

A poll by Survation taken in in May found that 83 per cent of respondents were planning a staycation rather than travelling abroad in 2021, with 12 per cent considering a trip to Europe and 5 per cent planning to travel further afield.

The Johnsons and their young son, Wilfred, holidayed on the west coast of Scotland in summer 2020, renting a house on the Applecross peninsula for a week.

They ended that trip a day early because of security concerns, however, with photographers having tracked them down following an alleged leak of the location of the house by local MP, Ian Blackford. Blackford strongly denied the allegations at the time.

In December 2019, the Prime Minister and his then fiancé took a winter break to Mustique, a private island in the archipelago nation of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Johnson was later criticised by the MPs standards watchdog for failing to properly explain how the £15,000 holiday was funded.