Jim Armitage: Darling of the Inners

The In campaign should make Alistair Darling its boss. Now.

The former chancellor fired off a tub-thumper of a speech at the CBI bash last night, which pitted him against Eurosceptic Lord Howard.

Admittedly, he was playing to an easy crowd — the CBI is anti-Brexit — but he spoke with experience, humour and, rarely for an Inner, passion.

He brought cheers as he quaked with fury at Boris’s “nonsense” comparison of the EU with Hitler and the Brexit camp’s personal attacks on Mark Carney.

Experience and humour came in his recounting of “the only truly scary phone call” he’d ever had, from RBS boss Fred Goodwin in May 2008. “RBS is haemorrhaging money,” the Shred declared. “We can only survive another two or three hours... What are you going to do about it?”

The point was RBS got into its mess by taking risks it didn’t understand; just what the Brexiteers want us to do. Why take that risk when the world’s major economic groups are warning us against it? Howard’s response — that economists are usually wrong anyway — sounded petulant and hollow, highlighting the lack of a coherent economic case for Brexit.

Darling, a veteran of the last referendum, wiped the floor with him.