It is hard to admit being wrong. But Brexit voters are doing so in droves

The Brexit bus: former Tory donor Guy Hands has held it up as an example of the ‘total lies’ told by the leave campaign. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP

Commentators, politicians and economists tend to think they are quoting John Maynard Keynes with: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

I have always been suspicious of the derivation of this putative remark. Even in this modern world of fake news, facts do not change. New information may come to light, but facts are facts. I don’t think there is any evidence that Keynes ever perpetrated such a canard, and nor does Keynes’s distinguished biographer, Robert Skidelsky.