So just because the Deloitte memo in today's Times was not commissioned by anyone in government does not mean it's untrue.

Because what it says are the stuff I hear daily from the mandarin class:

That Whitehall is dangerously under-resourced for Brexit

The prime minister is a very long way from having set a negotiating strategy and priorities for our life outside the EU

And the needs of industry are seen in a piecemeal way

Now since it's only the future prosperity and security of the UK that is at stake, we can all choose to react in one of two ways.

We can view senior Whitehall officials as defeatists engaged in what the foreign secretary would presumably call a 'whingerama'.

Or we can be anxious that quite soon we'll witness a serious exodus of investment and jobs from Britain.

Because multinationals read and hear reports like Deloitte's all the time at the moment, and do not witness many conspicuously countervailing facts.