Dear Reader,

IF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S G7 summit had been able to go ahead at the end of the month, the British Prime Minister would have faced 14 days of quarantine on his return. At the very least, it would have added to the farce that is rapidly becoming a tragedy for the travel sector.

No one is happy and the clock is ticking. What’s more, we are at odds, for a change, with our European neighbours, who are slowly easing travel restrictions and, eventually, will be keen to welcome tourists from the UK.

So, what do we do by way of encouraging them? We dig our heels in and confirm that, as of Monday, the two-week quarantine rule will apply.

Then, the increasingly lightweight-sounding Home Secretary Priti Patel said in a video meeting with travel bosses that ‘we share one aim; to keep people safe and get Britain moving again’ and all ideas about how to do this will be most helpful.

Not withstanding the threat from Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA’s parent company IAG, to take legal action against the Government, those ideas may well be winging their way to Whitehall next week.

But it’s become such an unnecessarily complicated picture, involving ‘air bridges’, testing for coronavirus at airports and the threat of fines for those not doing what they’re told.

It’s no wonder a Greek hotelier called me this week to say: ‘You British are good at looking in both directions at the same time.’

We’ve tried to make sense of this on Pages 60 to 61, while keeping you posted on what’s happening in Europe and places further afield, such as the Maldives (pictured).

There are some great deals on offer, but paying up front is not for the faint-hearted while the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice is that we should go nowhere unless it’s absolutely essential. That could change but the quarantine rule won’t be reviewed until the end of June.

Our cover story picks up on a growing trend for ‘doing-somegood’ holidays, a chance to volunteer on environmental projects around the world and here in the UK.

Some people think a kinder society will emerge from this crisis but, for now, we want the Government to come to its senses and offer some clarity both to travellers and travel companies.