Richard Harrington is an EU regulation junkie. He had to be, given his job as Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy - a poisoned chalice if ever there was one.

The whole of the EU project is an attempt to impose “ever closer union”, so dear to PM Theresa May’s heart. The failing EU super-state is a utopian dream based on two flawed ideas: that citizens will abandon their annoying attachment to individual autonomy and that certain entitled government funded businesses, like the doomed Airbus project (whose CEO so impressed Harrington), can successfully outcompete innovative small and medium sized businesses by strangling them with meaningless regulations and red-tape.

Are regulations necessary? Governments, depending on politicised science, sold us the dream: diesel will save the planet. Instead, they crippled the automotive industry, which is still waiting patiently for the breakthrough in battery technology needed to make the electrification of the car a scalable alternative.

Meanwhile, our local entrepreneur, Tim Martin, CEO of Wetherspoons, has nimbly tweaked his supply-chain to source products from outside the protectionist EU, delivering an even better, affordable, drinking and dining experience to his grateful customers.

Aspiring totalitarians always need a doom scenario to justify their power grab.

Prof. Christine Wheeler McNulty

Oxhey