Lord King, the former governor of the Bank of England, has just given an interview to the World at One. He said that the EU referendum was “the most dispiriting” he could recall and that both sides were guilty of exaggeration.
These are from the BBC’s Mark Broad.
Lord Merv King lays into Osborne and Cameron: 'This was the most dispiriting campaign I can recall ...The gov needs to take responsibility'
Much like its political leaders Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, the Vote Leave online campaign has gone rather quiet over the weekend. The Twitter and Facebook accounts have been silent since 23 June and the campaign website homepage has been wiped.
Although the campaign’s archive of pledges, briefings, speeches and op-eds written by senior campaign figures are still hosted on the site, they are no longer linked to from the homepage, making them much harder to find.
This is rather different from the Conservative party wipedown of 2013, in which the Tories removed a decade’s worth of speeches completely from their website and blocked archiving services such as the Wayback Machine from accessing them.
But anyone entering through the main www.voteleavetakecontrol.org link will see only a note thanking supporters and a photo of Johnson, Gove and Priti Patel campaigning in front of a battle bus emblazoned with a version of the controversial £350m claim, with no way to access any of the rest of the site.
You can still find the rest of the website’s content through this link.
The prime minister will set up a new team of civil servants inside the Cabinet Office, reporting to cabinet, to draw up options for Britain’s renegotiations with the rest of the EU, his spokesman has announced.
The unit, which will also include officials from the Foreign Office and the Treasury, will carry out preliminary work, which could be handed to an incoming prime minister when the Conservatives’ leadership race is complete.
“What the civil service is there to do is to make sure that we prepare, as much as the civil service can, for a new prime minister,” she said.
Cameron’s troubleshooter Oliver Letwin will also be given a new “facilitative role”, consulting across government and with experts about the options.
David Cameron condemned a spate of racist attacks since last week’s referendum, saying he would “not tolerate intolerance”, his official spokesperson has said.
Several MPs have reported that constituents have been harassed since the result of the vote emerged. But the spokeswoman said:
This government will not tolerate intolerance. We are absolutely clear on the need to reassure communities across Britain. We are a tolerant nation; that existed long before we were members of the European Union, and we should hold fast to that.
John Woodcock’s kind offer to stand in for Clive Lewis at defence questions has been turned down, I’m told. (See 12.56pm.) Emily Thornberry, the new shadow foreign secretary who was previously shadow defence secretary, will be speaking for the opposition instead.
John Woodcock, the pro-Trident Labour MP who is a fierce critic of Jeremy Corbyn, has told the Labour leader that if Clive Lewis, the new shadow defence secretary, does not make it back from Glastonbury in time for today’s defence questions (see 11.28am), he will take over himself. Woodcock is chair of the backbench defence committee and Labour rules allow this, he says.
As bb defence chair, advised JC I'll speak from frontbench if new shadow defence sec not back from Glastonbury today pic.twitter.com/ThaDHKecun
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