Yahoo Finance Piers Morgan accuses government of confusing 'mixed message' over Christmas restrictions
Watch: Piers Morgan blasts the government’s Christmas COVID rules
Piers Morgan has accused the government of a “failure of leadership” as “mixed messaging” confuses the nations about their coronavirus Christmas plans.
There has been increasing pressure on UK leaders to U-turn on allowing three households from anywhere in the four nations to form a bubble from 23-27 December, as COVID-19 cases continue to spike.
This morning, Boris Johnson PM agreed to keep the Christmas mixing rules in place.
Morgan, 55, fumed on Good Morning Britain: “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.”
Read more: Piers Morgan ‘I was a Covidiot’
Co-host Susanna Reid, 50, tried to present the opposing 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.”
But Morgan hit back: “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.”
Read more: Piers Morgan interrupted by viral vaccination star Martin Kenyon asking 'who are you?'
Despite urgent talks between Michael Gove and the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on Tuesday, a new strategy on COVID Christmas rules has not been agreed.
Leaders are reportedly trying to approve new safety warnings, after suggestions from government ministers that people should be more careful than the current bubble rules allow.