DOWNING St has brushed aside Nicola Sturgeon’s warning about promoting the Remain campaign’s argument with “fear-based campaigning” as David Cameron passionately echoed Gordon Brown and said voting to stay in the EU was the “patriotic” thing to do.

The First Minister ticked off Chancellor George Osborne for making overblown economic claims, saying: “You only have to look at the Scottish referendum to know that that kind of fear-based campaigning, that starts to insult people’s intelligence, can have a negative effect.”

But when asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Ms Sturgeon’s warning, his spokesman said: “The Government is clear that people are asking for facts. It is right to set out the best assessment based on the most comprehensive analysis of what the economic impact is of the Out vote to leave the EU.

“But it is also a positive case because the Treasury has also assessed that there is a potential economic upside from remaining in the EU. The reform package negotiated by the PM, the Treasury assessed, could be worth up to four per cent of GDP as a result of, for example, completing the digital single market and completing the market for services.”

When it was suggested the Treasury figures were not facts but predictions, the spokesman replied: “These are forecasts, assessments of the scenarios that have been described by the former deputy Governor of the Bank of England as reasonable based on the best available tools. People have asked for this information and it is right the Government sets this out.”

At another campaign event in Luton, Mr Cameron declared: “The big bold patriotic thing is to stay in the EU...to fight for the world we want.”

Last month, Mr Brown claimed he was making the “positive, principled, patriotic case” for Britain to stay in the EU.

The Tory leader also addressed growing resentment among some of his anti-EU colleagues, who are alarmed at what they have dubbed the Treasury’s “dodgy dossier”, which warned Brexit would plunge the UK into a year-long recession and cost up to 820,000 jobs.

Conservative MPs - one of whom, Marcus Fysh, called the Treasury dossier "specious b******s" – are said to be planning a vote of no-confidence in their party leader following the referendum vote.

The PM said: "What I am doing is I am doing my job. I said very clearly to the British people that if you vote Conservative... we will have a renegotiation of Britain's terms of membership of the European Union, we will hold an in/out referendum and I will abide by the result,"

He acknowledged, given the passions involved over the EU, there was always going to be strong arguments but added: “Do I believe at the end of this we can all come together and accept the result? Absolutely, I do.”

Addressing workers at the Luton HQ of low-cost airline easyJet, Mr Cameron drew on the Treasury analysis, which claimed that, based on a 12 per cent slump in the value of the pound following a Brexit vote, £230 would be put on the cost of a family holiday and £4 on the price of a phone call home.

“There are some very strong retail arguments about the cost of a holiday, the cost of food, the cost of using your phone, for staying in the European Union," declared the PM.

Despite stressing the consumer benefits of EU membership, Mr Cameron insisted he was not offering a "head against heart" trade-off, in which the economic case for Remain is pitched against the patriotic appeal of Leave.

Staying in the EU was the "big, bold, patriotic" thing to do, because Britain's strength and standing in the world were enhanced by its membership of international bodies, he said.

But Steve Hilton, Mr Cameron's former policy guru, who backs Brexit, said the holiday price warning was another example of the sort of "pathetic, patronising EU scares" being deployed by both sides.

"You've got to be kidding. It's almost like a parody," he declared, adding that what he wanted to see was a “serious debate about the long-term future of how we want to be governed rather than this kind of nonsense. It just does not do anyone any favours; it just puts people off the whole political class".

With less than a month to go until polling day however, the Remain campaign was boosted by a poll showing older voters, men and Conservative backers all moving their support away from Brexit.

The Daily Telegraph said its latest survey of 800 people by ORB International gave the pro-EU side a 13-point lead - by 55 per cent to 42 per cent - among those certain to vote, thanks in part to dramatic shifts among the three key groups.

Over-65s and male voters - seen as the most keen on quitting the EU - backed Remain by 52 per cent to 44 and 55 per cent to 42 respectively with Conservatives, who favoured Brexit by 60 per cent to 34 in March, now 57 per cent to 40 for Remain.

Meantime at Westminster, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, who has caused controversy by warning of the economic dangers of Britain leaving the EU, defended his remarks, saying it was his job to "come straight with the British people" over the risks of a Brexit vote and denied accusations of becoming politically involved.

In a heated exchange with MPs, Mr Carney defended the Bank's warning earlier this month that a vote to leave the EU could trigger a recession in the UK, hit jobs and lead to higher interest rates for borrowers.

But Jacob Rees Mogg, MP and a member of the Commons Treasury committee, accused him of being "politically involved" and of colluding with the Chancellor to produce the same Brexit "propaganda" as the Treasury.

Mr Carney insisted there was "no possibility of undue influence coming from the Treasury".

He added the Bank was "apolitical" and said it had a responsibility to warn Mr Osborne and the wider public about the economic risks of a Brexit that it had uncovered.

"It's important not just to those in financial markets but it's important to come straight with the British people about that," he declared.

All nine members of the Bank's rate-setting committee agreed that a Brexit could have a "material" impact on growth and inflation, he told MPs.

Fellow Bank policymaker Martin Weale agreed a Leave vote would "increase the risk of recession".

On Thursday, the first of the major EU televised events takes places.

Presented by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire, the programme is aimed at younger voters with an audience made up of 18 to 29-year-olds.

They will be able to question the pannelists who are: for Remain the SNP’s Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, and Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary, who heads his party’s In campaign; and for Leave Liam Fox, the former Conservative Defence Secretary, and Diane James, Ukip MEP and the party’s spokeswoman on justice and home affairs.