Remainers have been making plenty of this front page story in the Times this morning which claimed that the police have warned Sajid Javid that a no-deal Brexit would “pose a risk to public safety.” However, any super-sleuth detectives who investigated the story themselves will have pieced together the clues that this was not in fact a letter from the Old Bill themselves but from a small group of Police and Crime Commissioners – politicians, not police. ‘Ello ‘ello…

There are 40 PCCs altogether – 20 of whom are Conservative – but the letter itself is from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, which in fact counts only 2 Conservative PCCs out of its 7 board members. It’s chaired by Labour’s Mark Burns-Williamson, while one of the Independent PCCs on its board, Martin Surl, is a former EU advisor. Wot’s going on ‘ere then?

One of the signatories to the letter itself is Lord (Willy) Bach, a former Labour Shadow Attorney General who made exactly the same claims about Brexit before the referendum. It’s a political intervention through and through. Turns out the Times scoop was not much cop…