Cut the claptrap

So far the campaign for the EU referendum has resembled a contest as to which side can spin the most lurid and least plausible horror stories. On the one hand, the ‘in’ campaign claims that we’ll be £4,300 worse off if we leave; that budget airlines will stop serving Britain and that we will become more prone to terror attacks. Not to be outdone, the ‘out’ side warns that we will be crushed by a fresh avalanche of regulation and immigration, and more prone to terror attacks.

The tone of the debate was summed up by Michael Gove this week when he accused the ‘in’ campaign of treating the public like children by spinning stories of bogeymen — only then to claim that voting to remain in the EU would leave us like ‘hostages locked in the back of the car’. The Justice Secretary, like his opponents, should know that such exaggerations weaken his overall case.