Hello, it's Friday the 3rd of September and thanks for joining me, Simon Calder, for the latest on travel and destinations from the Green List and the travel desk of the Independent. Today, should the UK scrap the Green List requiring hotel quarantine? An airline Bigwig thinks so. Why cruises cost more from Liverpool than Southampton.

And if you want to pay homage to Abba in Stockholm,

is there any way around the tough Swedish ban on British visitors?

Of course, this podcast is completely free,

as is my weekly travel email, do sign up at

independent.co.uk.

The red list has been in force for about the last six months from the UK.

It basically says, well, here's a list of, it was, I think, around 30 countries now over 60, from which if you're

coming in, you must quarantine at your own expense in a quarantine hotel. And that's going to cost

you £2,885. You're going to be stuck there, I afraid for 11 nights but there are calls to remove that

even though the government says it's absolutely essential because otherwise we would be

letting people in the Department of Transport spokesperson told me we have one overwhelming priority,

public health. We keep everything under regular review. We are informed by the latest risk

assessment from the Joint Biosecurity Centre. Well, Robert Boyle disagrees. He is the former

director of strategy for the airline group IAG,

and he was also commercial director for British Airways. He now runs a consultancy called

Grib Point Consulting and in it he questions the strategy of locking people up in hotels

at great expense. He points out that the UK is a

complete outlier among European countries in the draconian restrictions it imposes. If you look at

Germany, where I was last week, it's got barely a quarter of the cases that the UK has, and it has much lighter restrictions. It's got barely a quarter of the cases that the UK has and it has much lighter restrictions.

Its highest risk category broadly equates to the UK ambalist with a test before departure to Germany

and self-isolation when you arrive. But Germany doesn't apply its toughest restrictions

...