DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Exposing the lies behind Project Fear
Exactly a year ago, in those fractious, febrile days of the referendum campaign, the Treasury produced a report on the supposed impact of leaving the EU.
The brainchild of then-Chancellor George Osborne, it formed the centrepiece of Project Fear and deployed a barrage of apocalyptic forecasts suggesting that cutting ties with Brussels would leave us isolated and penniless in a hostile world.
Not only has none of this come true but according to a new analysis by the Change Britain think-tank, the picture is almost exactly the reverse.
Last year, a treasury report, the brainchild of then-Chancellor George Osborne, formed the centrepiece of Project Fear. It said unemployment would rise and we'd fall into recession. Yet a year on, we have record employment and strong growth
Just one in ten of Mr Osborne’s predictions has been realised, while the worst ones have all proved to be demonstrably false.
Let’s remind ourselves what they were. The report said a Brexit vote would bring ‘immediate and profound economic shock’, unemployment would rise by 500,000, we’d fall into recession and trade would stagnate.
Yet a year on we have record employment, strong growth, and non-EU countries queuing up to strike new trade deals. We wouldn’t be rash enough to suggest there will not be economic storms ahead, but Britain is in much better shape to weather them than the crumbling eurozone.
Perhaps the most depressing aspect of the Treasury report is that it was drawn up by civil servants. Supposedly politically neutral, Whitehall colluded with Mr Osborne in trying to pass off a naked piece of propaganda as genuine research.
It didn’t work of course, but is it any wonder the British people have become so disillusioned with politics?
Prince Harry has told how he internalised his grief and rage and described how close he came to a complete breakdown. It may give succour to thousands who feel overwhelmed, afraid and alone
Harry gets personal
Like most of the country, the Mail has great affection for Prince Harry.
From the heartbreaking pictures of the bemused, bereft schoolboy trailing behind his mother’s coffin, through his courage and dedication serving with the Army in Afghanistan to his energetic charity work, he has endeared himself to the nation.
True, he is no stranger to controversy, having made some poor decisions and fallen in with some bad company along the way, but his good humour and natural charm have been his redemption.
Now, he has bravely decided to talk about the effects on his mental health of losing his mother at 12, shattering the royal taboo on discussing personal emotions. In a candid interview, he told how he internalised his grief and rage and described how close he came to complete breakdown.
He was eventually persuaded by his ‘hugely supportive’ brother Prince William to relax his ‘stiff upper lip’ and seek counselling. Thanks to the therapy he received, his work with injured army veterans and releasing aggression through boxing, he feels he has come to terms with his demons and that his life is now ‘in a good place’.
There will be those who believe such intimate revelations are unseemly in a senior royal, but the Mail believes this interview will do a great deal of good. Mental illness among the young is one of the great scourges of our age, with suicide rates at terrifying levels.
Hearing such a prominent young person admit to being a sufferer may give succour to thousands who feel overwhelmed, afraid and alone and encourage them to talk through their problems.
Princess Diana would have been immensely proud.
It really is beyond parody. As deranged North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatens to engulf the world in nuclear chaos, it emerges that the British taxpayer gave him and his henchmen £740,000 of aid in 2015.
It may not seem much compared with the vast sums being squandered elsewhere, but why should we be giving anything to the most dangerous despot on the planet?