Vote Leave's CBI stunt spoils fair criticism on nuance-free EU stance | Nils Pratley

Industry body fails to reflect different opinions of UK businesses but heckling the PM at CBI conference misses the mark

How to spoil a half-decent point with a silly stunt. The Vote Leave students who heckled David Cameron's speech to the CBI conference came across as wanting to squash debate on Europe. If, as suggested, similar protests are planned at the annual meetings of companies with pro-EU bosses, the tactic will become tiresome and probably self-defeating.

Yet, on the narrow issue of the CBI's utterances on Europe, there is a fair criticism to make. The problem is not that the CBI gets 0.6% of its funding from the European commission for use of its economic surveys - the percentage is so small it is not worth making a fuss about.