Brexit would be painful - just be aware of that when you cast your vote

What would Brexit look like in reality? That is something the out campaigns and their spokespeople often struggle to explain. So Oxford Economics has had a go for them. It does not make for pretty reading, at least for anyone with an interest in the country’s future prosperity.

The think tank underlines the central point that no one can be really sure what a UK out of the EU would look like. However, it has concocted nine possible scenarios. In every single one of them, Britain ends up as a poorer country in the event that it votes to walk away.

Money isn’t everything, of course, as Brexit supporters sometimes point out – at least when they’re not trying to deny what the vast majority of impartial economic analysis is saying. A small amount of GDP is surely worth it if Britain regains its sovereignty.

However, if this country wants to keep the impact on GDP small, it would need to retain access to the European single market on similar terms to those it enjoys today. To do that it would have to follow the examples of Norway and Switzerland (the suggestion that Britain could somehow secure better terms than they enjoy is a fantasy).

To secure their single market access, Norway and Switzerland have had to agree to a lot of EU rules, including those on the free movement of people that Britain isn’t terribly keen on. They have also signed away a lot of sovereignty to the EU and they kick over sizeable contributions to the EU budget. However, because they’re not members of the EU, they have no right to vote on any changes to the terms and conditions it might make. They just have to lump it.

To get back all the sovereignty that Eurosceptics say they want would likely entail surrendering our European trade freedoms, and accepting the migration of thousands of jobs as multinational companies depart these shores with the aim of retaining their preferential access to the single market.

Even the savings reaped from contributions to the EU budget would prove to be a false economy, particularly if an EU exit results in a clampdown on immigration. Oxford Economics predicts that capping inward migration to the level of David Cameron’s target would create a fiscal black hole of up to £31bn. That is the equivalent of slapping an extra 6 per cent on VAT.

Just as worrying is the flipside of the coin: the impact on the rest of the EU of the UK pulling out would be minimal. So, when it comes to the exit negotiations, if and when they begin, the rest of Europe has precious little to gain economically from playing nice, and almost nothing to gain politically. Quite the reverse in fact. If you still want out after all that, by all means cast your vote accordingly. But be aware that there will be a cost, and it will be a very steep one.

Twitter might limit its users to 140 characters, but the writing on its cultural impact as it turns 10 could probably fill 140 windy books. Its financial impact, by contrast, is negligible. More than 300 million people use it, but while its revenue growth over the first 10 years of its life has been impressive, it still doesn’t manage to make money. Americans don’t worry as much about that as we do, as long as companies are growing (see Amazon); but Twitter’s growth has stalled and its share price has cratered.

There was no birthday party on Wall Street for this one-time star of Silicon Valley. Part of the problem is that while Twitter is a media company, it’s not a very good communicator. The company has sometimes seemed slow to respond to crises and slow to listen to its customers. The response to the vile abuse of supporters of the ultimately successful campaign to put Jane Austen on the £10-note a couple of years ago could serve as a case study on how not to handle a PR snafu.

Twitter’s response to its critics was slow, and lumpen. It was seemingly unable to get control of the narrative. Critics also say it is too often on the defensive on the release of its quarterly earnings statements. One of them, Chris Sacca, an early stage investor, has produced a better defence of the company in a lengthy, but very readable critique, than the company itself ever has. As he contemplates the next 10 years, perhaps Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey should take a leaf out of Mr Sacca’s book. Otherwise the outlook will remain #cloudy

An example of the big money in big data? Or just a very big tax inversion? The merged American data company IHS and Nasdaq-listed but UK based Markit will be headquartered in London. The net result will be a tax rate in the low to mid 20s, rather than the 35 per cent it would have to stump up had it based itself in the US.

That is the sort of thing Chancellor George Osborne might have been expected to trumpet as evidence of the success of his policy of progressively cutting corporation tax rates. But, of course, he has other things on his mind right now, after his disastrous decision to slash disability benefits while handing tax cuts to the well off.

Whether this deal is anything to crow about anyway is open to debate. Of course it is good news for the head office staff in London. But it is also a further sign of Britain becoming the world’s biggest offshore tax haven. Is that really something to be proud of?