Matthew Lynn

Sajid Javid. Liz Truss. Dominic Raab, or perhaps even his old City Hall colleague Kit Malthouse. There are plenty of well-qualified candidates to move into the house next door when Boris Johnson becomes prime minister next week. But one thing is surely now certain. The incumbent will have to be removed. In the dying days of a dismal Chancellorship, Philip Hammond seems intent on doing nothing more than stoking the dying embers of Project Fear. At a moment when the country needs a Chancellor working out how to cope with a potentially major economic shock, it is stuck with one paralysed by an irrational fear of what might be around the corner. Hammond proved that once again today when he latched onto the latest scenario from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Unemployment is at record lows. Wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade. The gender gap is evaporating, creating a more equal society. Which country is that? France, perhaps, as it benefits from president Macron’s reforms? Or Germany, as it reaps all the benefits of the Single Market and the single currency? Well, not quite. In fact, it is Britain. Despite Brexit, to use the obligatory two words that now have to be firmly placed in front of any positive news about the economy, the UK continues to evolve into one of the best places in the world to be an employee right now.

Most of us probably decided Aston Martin was by far the coolest car company in the world the first time we saw Honour Blackman climb into James Bond's DB5 in Goldfinger. But just in case there were still any doubters out there, there is now another reason to love them as well. Amidst the constant predictions of disaster from the auto industry that would follow from leaving the European Union without a deal, the company's chief executive has pointed out an obvious fact: that at this stage, it would be better to simply leave than prolong the agony of our departure any further.  The auto industry has been one of the most consistent supporters both of staying in the EU, and, if we absolutely must leave, doing so with a deal that preserves as much of the relationship as possible.

Smooth. Intelligent and articulate. A former finance minister. A European. And perhaps most importantly of all, a mildly irritating potential rival to the prime minister of his own country. In lots of ways, George Osborne ticks all the boxes to replace Christine Lagarde as the managing director of the IMF. Indeed, if you were looking for a perfect replica of the incumbent, minus the pearls and the elegant neck scarfs, you might well settle on the former chancellor. The trouble is, while Osborne’s brand of centrist Conservatism might suit the Fund in easier times, what it needs now is radical change – and the editor of the Evening Standard has never shown much interest in that. There is certainly a case to be made for a British MD of the IMF.

If it was in a playground in one of the rougher parts of town, which increasingly it resembles, this could easily escalate. One candidate remarks that he thinks the party should ‘f**k business’ so another one wades in to argue ‘f**k 'f**k business'’. And perhaps by lunchtime some other candidate you have never really heard off will be tweeting that instead the party should ‘f**k, 'f**k, f**k business'’. Before long, the Tory party leadership contest will start to look like the bits that were edited out of a Malcolm Tucker rant in The Thick of It for being too sweary. And yet the row spectacularly misses the point. Of course the Conservative party should be pro-business. But that is not quite the same thing as being pro-Big Business and its lobbyists.

It might be 30 per cent. It might be 35 per cent. It could even be 40 per cent or higher. Until the results of the European elections come in late on Sunday night, we won't know what percentage of the vote Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party will get. But we do know that it will be the clear winner, and that it will have established itself as a major new force in British politics. So far, the party has deliberately said very little about its policies, although most of us are getting the vibe it might be in favour of leaving the European Union. Once the dust settles on Monday morning, however, that will have to change. It will be in the driving seat. It will be time for some Farage-onomics. So what would that look like?

Factories would move abroad to escape punitive tariffs. The ports would be blocked up. The hospitals would run out of medicines and fruit would remain unpicked on trees. Over the last three years, we have become used to wildly over-the-top predictions about all the terrible things that would happen to the British economy if we ever get around to leaving the European Union. But if you thought that was bad, and global investors were nervous about putting money into the UK markets, wait until you see what happens as they start to get to grips with the plans should Jeremy  Corbyn and John McDonnell ever move into Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. The FTSE is already one of the cheapest major indices in the world but that doesn't mean it can't get a lot cheaper still.

The sunshine was glorious. There was a new episode of Game of Thrones to watch in the middle of the night, and everyone seems to have forgotten about Brexit for a while. As bank holiday weekends go, it was a pretty good one. Under a Labour government, however, it would have been even better. Instead of going back to work, today would have been the St George’s Day holiday and we could all have slept in for another twenty-four hours. The trouble is, lots more state-directed time off is the last thing the British economy needs. Indeed, in a deregulated, flexible gig economy it is debatable whether we need bank holidays at all – and we certainly don’t need yet more of them.

Maybe we will go for a Norway-Double Plus. Or A Canada-Minus. Or Common Market 2.0, or a WTO-Light, an EEA-Doubled, or an Enhanced EFTA or even a Singapore Sling or a White Russian. Okay, scratch those last two. I seem to have mixed up a list of options for leaving the European Union with a cocktail menu. But that pair aside – and who knows, maybe late on a Thursday night MPs will vote them through instead – they are all ways that we might eventually leave. Amid all the arguments over our departure, however, one point is easily overlooked. For the economy, after we sailed through the original deadline for getting out, it doesn’t make a lot of difference anymore. Leaving the EU was always going to do some damage to business, even if the impact was exaggerated.

It would only encourage irresponsible lending. Deficits would run out of control. The rules of the single currency would be undermined, and voters would lose faith in the euro. Over the last few years, the Germans, the European Central Bank, and the EU itself, have been adamant that banks shouldn’t be bailed out inside the eurozone. Along the way, Greek, Cypriot, Italian and Irish banks have all been allowed to go to the wall or squeezed to extinction. But hold on. There seems to be an exception to that austere financial regime. Big German banks. With the once mighty Deutsche Bank in serious trouble, it turns out there is nothing wrong with the government orchestrating what amounts to a rescue after all.

It would stop us crashing out. It would give us enough time to negotiate a free-trade deal. It would allow business time to prepare, and for the government to put in place all the extra infrastructure we might need once we are outside the European Union. As the deadline draws closer and closer, the pressure is mounting for a delay to our departure from the EU. At first that was just likely to be a few week or months. But now Brussels is talking about two years. But hold on. That is crazy. Sure, plenty of big businesses will be supporting that, and lots of people will be arguing it is the only way to avert a potential economic catastrophe. They are understandably nervous about leaving without a deal. But in fact, it would be the worst possible outcome for the economy. Why?

Cripes. At this rate the CBI will be putting out reports on Brexit's potential benefits, George Osborne will be reminding us he could always see its upside, and even the FT will be running leaders saying Brexit doesn’t quite mean the end of the world. There have been plenty of twists and turns in our tortured departure from the European Union but few quite so unexpected as the apparent conversion of the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney to the cause. In a speech yesterday, Carney didn't opt for any of the apocalyptic stuff – no food on the shelves at Tesco, pensioners dying in hospitals because of a shortage of medicines, slight delays at the Tuscany airports – but instead he took a more measured, reasonable approach.