Jeremy Hunt delivered a very carefully-worded denial that he nor the Treasury was responsible for the Sunday Times’ splash that the government is hoping to cosy up to the EU with a softer Swiss-style deal. Speaking at the Treasury select committee this afternoon, he told MPs:

“With respect to the story in the Sunday Times, if you’re saying ‘Was the Treasury, was I the source of any suggestion that we should seek to renegotiate the TCA towards an agreement more like Switzerland’, the answer is no because it’s not my position and never has been. If you are saying ‘Do I believe we could remove the physical barriers to trade in the way that happens on the Franco-Swiss border, the Norway-Sweden border, maybe in a way that is relevant for the NI protocol issues on the Island of Ireland’, that has been my public position for some time.”

He later went on to imply the Sunday Times could have been mistaken on this latter point about technological solutions used on the Swiss border. A suggestion Guido reckons the Sunday Times Lobby team won’t take lying down…