Image source, Getty Images

The G7 summit in Japan has taken another step towards completion of a set of free trade deals which between them could boost the world economy by half a trillion US dollars (£340bn), David Cameron has said.

The prime minister hailed an agreement to accelerate negotiations on a deal to remove barriers to trade between the EU and Japan, which he said was worth a total of £89bn to the two sides.

Speaking at the end of a two-day summit which has been overshadowed for British observers by the impending EU referendum and for the rest of the world by US President Barack Obama's visit to Hiroshima, Mr Cameron warned that the UK risked being frozen out of such deals if it voted to quit the European Union on 23 June.

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live

The Daily Telegraph

According to the Daily Telegraph, external, British intelligence agencies are planning to recruit more middle-aged mums.

The paper reports that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ no longer insist new recruits have a university degree - and now favour "emotional intelligence" instead.

The security organisations have all used Mumsnet to find new female spies, dubbed Jane Bonds, while some agencies are targeting older women working in social care who may be bored with their careers.

It marks the first time the intelligence agencies have admitted to using female-friendly websites to recruit more women, as it emerged local newspapers are also being targeted by spy agencies to get a better balance of staff from both genders.

BBC Radio 5 Live

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

According to the Conservative former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, rather than being worse off if the UK leaves the EU, pensioners could lose "dramatic sums of money" if the UK remains.

The leading Vote Leave campaigner countered recently-released Treasury analysis which claims that OAPs would lose thousands of pounds in the event of Brexit.

Instead he claimed a planned EU solvency directive is "coming down the tracks" and could cost British pensioners £400bn.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

The former cabinet minister also claimed that EU plans to harmonise regulation of occupational pensions were still on the table and could be passed without British support under qualified majority voting rules.

The Daily Mail

Image source, Operation Black Vote

Employment minister Priti Patel says an Operation Black Vote poster depicting an elderly Asian British woman being berated by an aggressive thug "plumbs new depths in scaremongering".

The campaign says it is meant to show everyone has the same voting power.

But writing in the Daily Mail, external, the Conservative MP - a leading Vote Leave campaigner - criticised the imagery as "offensive and patronising".

She claims "the portrayal of the white voter as a knuckle-dragging racist" sends the subliminal message "that support for Brexit amounts to a form of bigotry".

Read more, external

BBC Radio 5 Live

The Guardian

Image source, PA

Labour's shadow business secretary Angela Eagle says the EU referendum debate has regressed to a male-only zone.

Writing in the Guardian,, external she says the campaign "is overwhelmingly dominated by men".

Ms Eagle says she held a press conference with Labour's former deputy leader Harriet Harman and MPs Seema Malhotra and Kate Green "in an attempt to redress the balance - to highlight the missing voices of women and the importance of the vote on EU membership for women at work".

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Europe editor Katya Adler tells a BBC Breakfast and 5 Live debate that "euroscepticism is widespread" across the continent.

For example, she says, Italy blames the euro and "German austerity" for the poor state of its economy, while Germans worry that "ever closer union" means having to pay for what they see as the "sins of southern Europe".

Meanwhile, some in the nations of central and eastern Europe say: "We didn't throw off the yoke of communism to now bow to Brussels."

However, she adds:

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Breakfast

Leave campaigner Dominic Raab says the G7's warning of the risks of Britain leaving the EU means they are "nervous about the impact on Europe rather than on the UK".

The Conservative MP and justice minister argues that there are "good pocket book reasons" why the UK would be better off out.

EU regulations "hit small businesses ten times harder than big businesses", he claims, adding that if the UK left it could "trade more energetically with the growth areas of the world".

The Leave campaign regularly says the UK pays £350m a week to the EU. Mr Raab says "we get around half of that back" but that still means "an immediate, annual £10bn dividend from independence" if the UK votes Leave.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

More from Pensions Minister Ros Altmann, who has defended the Treasury's latest post-Brexit analysis document, saying "whatever hits the economy is going to hit pensions".

Baroness Altmann said that "all the credible economic forecasts" suggested the economy would be weaker if Britain left the European Union and this would have an impact on pensions.

It follows Treasury analysis suggesting a leave vote would cause inflation to rise, eroding the value of state pension increases, costing recipients £137 a year.

Lady Altmann told BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

The Times

According to The Times, external, steps towards creating a European army are being kept secret from British voters - until the day after next month’s referendum.

"The plans, drawn up by the EU’s foreign policy chief, foresee the development of new European military and operational structures, including a headquarters," the paper reports.

"They are supported by Germany and other countries as the first step towards an EU army.

"Similar proposals were vetoed by Britain in 2011, although there are concerns that a loophole could allow nine states to group together and bypass opponents."

BBC Breakfast

Former Business Secretary Sir Vince Cable argues that most of the EU rules applying to the UK are associated with the single market - "free movement of capital, free movement of labour and the standards that are set around it".

He adds:

The Remain campaigner says the single market is "absolutely fundamental to our business".

BBC Breakfast

BBC Breakfast is hosting a debate on the EU with Remain supporter and ex-Lib Dem MP Sir Vince Cable and Leave campaigner and Conservative MP Dominic Raab.

Joining them are the BBC's Europe editor, Katya Adler, and politics professor Anand Menon.

Watch here or using the live tab above.