The Government has done what the German U-boats couldn't – it has stopped Cunard from sailing

You’ve got to take your hat off to this government for achieving what the German Second World War U-boats never did. It has stopped Cunard from sailing.

In the war years, the liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth sped to and fro across the Atlantic, carrying more than two million service men to fight a ruthless enemy. The ships were credited by Churchill for helping to shortening the fighting by a year.

And here we are, 75 years on, banned from going on any ocean cruise ships by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office because we might catch a virus that has proved harmless to more than 99 per cent of the population.

The result? Cunard, an iconic British brand loved by many but starved of cash because it can’t sail, has not just cancelled all cruises on its three liners for the rest of 2020, but pulled the first months of 2021 as well. Queen Elizabeth will be the first one back in service, in March 2021, but sailing close to home instead of in Australia as originally scheduled (presumably because the Land Down Under, in a bid to be more neurotic than the UK, has banned visitors for goodness knows how long). Queen Mary and Queen Victoria will not sail until April and May, respectively.

Countless jobs will be lost, not just shoreside employees in Cunard’s home port of Southampton (and in Australia), but the hundreds of crew, most from countries with no furlough scheme, who work on the ships. And then there is the hit for the UK economy. The Cruise Lines International Association says cruising is worth £10 billion a year to the UK. Cunard won’t be responsible for generating all that, but it’ll be raking in a good chunk.

And what about the thousands of cruisers who had saved hard for the kudos that comes with crossing the Atlantic with Cunard, which celebrates its 180th anniversary this year? I know having this rug pulled from under you is not the end of the world, and there is always another year (as long as they don’t cancel more). But haven’t we had enough disappointments? Getting away on a cruise would be a sign that life is returning to normal (I refuse to say ‘new’ normal because there is nothing normal about wearing masks and counting how many people you meet).

It wouldn’t be so tragic if we were dodging the torpedoes of the Second World War, but we are not. Rather we are being managed by a government frightened of its own shadow and so set on following a science that has been found so lacking it can’t see a way out of the Covid cul-de-sac.

I am flying abroad tomorrow and will be staying in a city-centre hotel, which I trust will have anti-Covid safety measures in place. That’s allowed. But I am banned from cruising with MSC, which resumed sailings in the Mediterranean last week, even though I can give you chapter and verse about the health and safety hoops it has jumped through to meet the standards of four European government agencies.

Such double-standards smack of good old-fashioned snobbery. These rules are made up by people who would never dream of going on a cruise, even if it is with an illustrious line like Cunard, which has carried hundreds of the great and the good across the Atlantic over the decades.

I’m not saying ships be allowed to sail full – I was all for social distancing well before there was a pandemic – or that cruise lines in any way scrimp on safety. And I understand that port calls have to be managed carefully, for the good of both passengers and local communities.

But the onerous demands being put on cruise lines are not fair. Costa Cruises will be back in service in a couple of weeks, sailing around Italy just for Italians. Why can’t we at the very least have cruises around the UK just for Brits? It would be a perfect fit for Cunard. The one thing this government is good at is U-turns, so come on Boris. Let your people cruise.