What difference will leaving or staying in the EU make to our economy? It’s hard to know because, when push comes to shove, economic arguments don’t really matter. One side in the referendum debate (you can probably guess which) has formally declared that it will not produce any economic analysis — yet it stands a decent chance of winning next week’s vote.

This much is clear: the chancellor will do whatever he can to scare voters witless, including repeatedly misrepresenting Treasury research to amplify the apparent risks of Brexit. Threatening an emergency budget with higher taxes and more austerity was such an economically illiterate and wilfully destructive thing to do that I half expect him to pitch up on the Sunday talk show sofas and