london

Maybe vaccination certificates from those who fly into the country ? Why not ? I remember having to show one in 1974 on a holiday in Tunisia.

Riverwalk you and I are Londoners. We know what the mainline train stations are like any weekend in the year, especially the Saturday before Christmas. Most of those people work in London and will be going "home". Our son is one. His head office is in town and he catches the Paddington to Penzance train with his cabin sized luggage along with hundreds of others.
Fleeing the capital is a crazy headline!

There are huge numbers of young people living and studying in London. They mostly have a room in a shared house or flat. Traditionally they go home to mum and dad for Christmas. Their journey would have been planned for this weekend-presents brought, train booked, no food left in accommodation etc. Add to that only a few more people and you have overcrowded trains.
There will be huge numbers of rich people heading off n cars to their second home. They don't get mentioned.

Riverwalk

To be fair to some of those people at the stations, they could well live in the Midlands/North and were returning home after working in London.

They can't all have been fleeing London - to do what, look for a B&B, a campsite?

Yes, the M4 commute, just naming one, on Monday mornings and Friday evenings was always exceptionally busy even from as far away as Wales.
People work away all week and return home at weekends, probably not so much now as people have worked from home.

If they are fleeing London because they live or work there, they're going to have to go back at some point..... especially if they're heading for relatives who aren't supposed to take them in anyway.

The tier 4 rules will affect those of us subject to them rather more than just over Christmas. I'm angry that this short notice announcement came from the same government who threatened legal action a couple of days ago, against boroughs who wanted to close schools early due to rising infections. A few hours notice to close so called non essential businesses and close contact services is not enough.
I wish it was against the rules to call others stupid and selfish too. We can't know other people's circumstances.

To be fair to some of those people at the stations, they could well live in the Midlands/North and were returning home after working in London.

They can't all have been fleeing London - to do what, look for a B&B, a campsite?

I suppose some, perhaps many, were being ‘selfish’. But last night I know that some people living alone, already badly affected by tier 3 restrictions, reached the end of their tether. We will see a rise in self-harm and suicide over this. The prospect of tier 4 for months, meeting only one other person outdoors in the cold and rain, may be unbearable. To get out of London might be a survival strategy. I am very worried for family members in London at the moment, and I have encouraged them to break the rules and meet one another in their homes if they cannot face the loneliness and stress. If I could have persuaded them to come and stay with me in tier 2, I would have done.

Yes, shocking.
Andrew Marr was blaming the government for 'allowing six, seven hours for people to leave'; were they supposed to have closed the train stations immediately and mounted guards on the streets?
I fear it may come to this because of these selfish people who refuse to act responsibly; 'I want to get home to Mum'.
There will be plenty of CCTv footage; something to do in lockdown would be to identify these people and start taking punitive action.

Spot on earnshaw, you can`t educate the stupid/morons.

Although..... it’s human nature and understandable when things change so drastically at the last minute.Many of those people would have had to have spent a week alone in London,
With nothing open, no friends or family to see, when often they have been living alone and working from home for most of this year anyway.
Johnson made a huge mistake in promising five days of Christmas for three households so early....