Brexit

It is, at times, unclear that George Osborne is aware that the under-30s are voting in this EU referendum. When he talks about house prices plummeting post-Brexit, he talks as if this will strike fear into everyone’s hearts. For older people seeking to downsize, this might be true – but for almost everyone else, it’s not. And when I hear the In side arguing that we should all be terrified of Brexit because it will cause house prices to fall, I can’t help but wonder if this is the best single reason to vote ‘out’. For most people my age, one of the worst changes in Britain has been the way property prices have spiraled out of control – indeed, how the economic system is conspiring against my generation.

As a proud Cornishman I was delighted earlier this month to be chatting to a young American fashion designer who excitedly told me about his growing label. 'We’ve just taken on two students from Foolmoof, that’s how you say it right?' I think he meant Falmouth whose university - specialising in creative industries - has been one of the recent success stories in Cornwall. I’ve also come across graphics designers for Pixar in the badlands west of Penzance. They have been using the superfast broadband network to pass their animations back and forth with LA. For all its Doc Martin appeal, Cornwall is not a parochial backwater, and thanks to European Union investment, stories like the ones above are becoming more commonplace.

Churches are generally ideal venues for public debates. But there’s a slight chance that a speech about the perils of EU membership will be interrupted by a homeless person doing a pee in the corner. At a debate on Christian responses to the EU at St James the Less church in Pimlico last night, Giles Fraser left off quoting his hero Tony Benn on the evil of unaccountable power in order to do his muscular Christian duty and help eject the man, who spluttered invective as he departed. Did I imagine it or did he shout 'Fexit Brexit'? A bit earlier, his opponent Ben Ryan had set out an optimistic vision – not Project Fear but Project Hope. He argued that the European project was never simply about economics: it was based in a Christian moral vision.