Liz Truss is not happy with the impact Brexit will allegedly have on the Scotch whisky industry. That. Is. A. Disgrace, she almost said today:

“There’s a huge risk to the whisky industry. If we were to leave the single market it would mean lots more cost for their business.”

A neat line, but what does the industry itself think?

David Frost, the publicly pro-Remain chief executive of the Scotch Whiskey Association, has previously argued on his website that:

“The existence of the industry does not depend on the EU. It depends on our ability to make a great product, at acceptable cost, and to beat the competition. Over the last hundred years we have always done that and I am confident we will carry on doing so in the future.”

Surely a better measure…

Privately, Frost is even more frank. In the leaked email below he complains that Cameron’s renegotiation was a “massive missed opportunity”:

“I guess we are all digesting the PM’s deal, recognising that it may evolve a little yet.  The whole thing feels to me like a massive missed opportunity.  What he has got probably is something like the best that could be achieved given the way the Govt went about the negotiation, ie the unwillingness to launch a significant campaign to convince broader European opinion about the need for a more open two-systems Europe”

And he then goes on to suggest that leading pro-Brexit economist Patrick Minford has a point. That’s the spirit!