"Nationalising RBS was a monumental error; no bank must ever bailed out again. Resolution and bail-in procedures to properly wind-down even the largest institution must be ready for use the next time there is a crisis. The government’s takeover of part of the banking industry in 2008 – combined with a stagnant economy and a flawed narrative about the real causes of the crisis &...

As I predicted, the talks about talks in Amman between Israel and the PLO came to nothing, simply because there's nothing to negotiate...the 'Palestinians' are unwilling to do anything unless the Israelis agree to all their demands in advance. While Mahmoud Abbas played good cop and talked about seizing opportunities for peace, Fatah's negotiator Saeb Erekat made it very plain ...

Previous polls had suggested that Boris Johnson was on course for a comfortable re-election, but this week's poll has put Ken Livingstone narrowly ahead, give or take a margin of error. Quite simply, Labour voters have shifted strongly into the Ken camp, as the charts below show.

It looks like the May's election for Mayor of London will be a close run thing. A new poll today from YouGov has Ken Livingstone two points ahead of Boris Johnson – a big turnaround from the eight point lead Boris had in June: Ken shouldn't be popping any champagne corks yet, of course. His lead is well within the poll's margin of error, and there's three and a ...

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has said Beijing tax authorities are reviewing their ruling that he pay a multimillion dollar penalty for alleged tax evasion. Absolute nonsense. The taxman is perfect, knows exactly how much we should pay and we should just hand over whatever is demanded. Remember, these are dedicated public servants, without error,

There is a psychological term some of you may have heard me mention before known as 'category error'. It refers to the inability to solve a problem because of the inability to name it correctly, deliberately or unconsciously. A good example can be seen here in this exchange yesterday between California Congressman Dan Kundgren, Republican Chairman of the House Administration Committee an...

In one case, we sought information on the details of a settlement in which an error had been made with the effect that the company concerned did not have to pay interest due on its tax liability. The C&AG told us that this resulted in a loss of up to £8 million in interest forgone.

Schools were paid in error on switching yet Michael Gove, education secretary, said in October there were no additional funds to swap

An excellent video by Bill Whittle that shows exactly how this dynamic works. One small error..he mixes up Hamas and Hezbollah at the 2:25 mark. One slight quibble. To me the Nazis were and are a movement of the Left, so rather than red-brown-green alliance ( the green being Islam) I see it as simply red and green. Important to remember that 'Nazi' is shorthand for the party's offic...

In my latest at WPR I take a middle road between McGrath and Galrahn on ASB: And of course, both sides have to prepare for war, both to improve their negotiating positions and in case negotiations fail. China’s military might is now sufficient that the United States cannot leave room for the kind of error that inter-service conflict normally produces; its military machine has to run as effic...