The Guardian view on Brexit and the economy: storm clouds on the horizon | Editorial

It falls to a former chancellor to speak blunt truths from the backbenches because Boris Johnson employs only those willing to embrace denial and deceit

Former chancellors often criticise serving prime ministers but usually when they represent different parties. The case of Philip Hammond is all the more remarkable: only a month has elapsed since he sat in the Treasury and already he is savaging Boris Johnson for pursuing a no-deal Brexit.

On that point, the two men might as well be in different parties. Mr Hammond is conservative in an old-fashioned sense of the word - inclined to preserve things; suspicious of ideology; fiscally hawkish. Mr Johnson represents the new style of conservative radicalism - contemptuous of governing conventions, profligate and prone to nationalistic bombast. Both would describe themselves as Eurosceptic, but for the former chancellor that means wariness of the federalising side of the European project. For the prime minister it extends to aggressive severance of Britain's ties to the continent, without alternative arrangements.

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