The concern is that oil traders have been reporting prices that are higher than what they are actually selling oil for, in order to push up the price and cream the profits. This might all sound similar to those who followed the Libor fixing scandal that saw the end of Bob Diamond’s career at Barclays and global condemnation of bankers who set benchmark interest rates at levels that suited them, rather than the consumer.

So could this be a case of greedy traders pushing up prices that we, the consumer, have to pay at the pump? Could it be the actions of a few crude desks around the globe that may have pushed up UK inflation, which then limited the amount of stimulus the Bank of England has been willing to feed into the UK economy?

If yes, then this could be just the cusp of the major financial story of 2013. As a former BP employee I have been known to jump to its defence, especially since I: a) enjoyed working there, and b) thought the bulk of blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was lumped on BP unfairly. Price manipulation is definitely harder to defend, and something I would never condone.

However, the media loves to hate an oil company, and sometimes the debate benefits from a balanced view. The reality is that the oil price is manipulated all the time by OPEC – the oil pricing cartel that started in 1960 and has been known to adjust production to boost price levels in order to keep oil dollars flowing into their coffers. OPEC has manipulated the oil price by tens of dollars in recent years, whereas the probe into corporate oil traders is only thought to amount to a few cents on the price of a barrel of oil.

This doesn’t mean that traders should go unpunished if proven to have done something wrong. Honesty has to be paramount in all financial and trading systems, otherwise what does capitalism amount to?

But it is too easy for the authorities to just accuse and point fingers, the best policy would be to acknowledge that the oil market and oil trading has a murky history and the culture needs to be changed. This EU probe is necessary and relevant, but let’s hope it does not turn into a witch hunt. If it does, it is unclear if a company like BP could withstand another reputational crisis so close to Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The Bank of Japan is throwing the kitchen sink at their economy, at the same time as debate is raging at the Fed that QE3 should come to an end. Added to this, the BoE seems to be having its own internal debate about the effectiveness of the UK’s quantitative easing policy.

Where Carney stands regarding these debates is what we want to know as his start date at the Old Lady comes into view. All eyes and ears will be on his response to questions about the positive and negative effects of QE. He is likely to be asked about the Bank of Japan’s enormous monetary policy programme announced earlier this month. While he is likely to be diplomatic, it will be interesting to see if he believes the BoJ’s economic objective – to use monetary stimulus to reach a 2% inflation target in 2 years – is realistic, and if QE is the best way to do this.

Will Carney adopt the BOJ-style of QE and throw the kitchen sink at the UK economy? Or will he adopt the more cautious approach of the ECB? What does he think about the Fed’s QE programme and the prospect of the end of the largest stimulus programme the world has ever known?

Everyone wants to know if he thinks the Fed’s massive expansion of its balance sheet has been successful, especially as cracks have started to form in the US economy recovery. While Carney is likely to be diplomatic (after all, central bankers do not typically comment on the activities of their peers), any candid comments will be most welcome by the fixed income and FX community who are trying to “price in” the Carney effect at the BoE.

The current governor of the Bank of Canada has taken on the challenge of his career by agreeing to head of the Bank of England. Canada has low inflation and its economy has stayed in positive territory ever since it emerged from recession at the end of 2009.

It’s a very different kettle of fish in the UK. The economy is sluggish, even if we do avoid a triple-dip recession the UK is likely to skirt along the bottom for sometime yet. The threat of stagflation is also very real as Carney gets ready to make his move.

The BOE has, so far, not been able to brighten this lacklustre economic landscape,  can Carney deliver the economic goods when Mervyn King has not?

Carney’s view of the limitations of monetary policy will also be monitored. The ECB has been clear that it feels monetary policy can’t fix everything and President Draghi has made clear that member nations’ governments need to do their bit to boost sustainable growth.

Does Carney feel the same? Where does he think the limitations of monetary policy lie? Is the UK economy beyond help? While we doubt he will admit that central banks’ are impotent, no one will buy what he says if he thinks he can click his fingers and make everything ok.

There has been a lot of speculation about Mark Carney and his style of central banking, but as we get closer to his start date at the Old Lady, we really know very little about his plans for the BoE. The BoE needs a new face and a new leader, his answers to some of these questions will help us to find out if he is the right man for the job.

Former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s death at the start of this week has temporarily interrupted the coverage of Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s new book: ‘Lean In – Women, Work and the Will to Lead.’  However, Margaret Thatcher could be seen as one of the pioneers of ‘leaning in’, doing so some 60 years before Sandberg’s book was published.

Margaret Thatcher (love or loathe her) was not just a formidable political force, but she also managed to ascend to the highest echelons of the political establishment with two children in tow and nurture a marriage, all in an era when it was completely normal for women to give up any career that they had at the first flash of an engagement ring.

In contrast, Margaret Thatcher met her future husband, Denis, at a dinner following her adoption as a Conservative candidate for Dartford, Kent. She was allowed to become a candidate even though she wasn’t on the official list because the Conservative Association was so impressed with her work as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. Talk about lean in – she left a good job to pursue this opportunity to get into politics and found another so she could work full time as a research chemist and support herself.

As a married woman In the early 1950’s she ran for the Dartford seat, the youngest and the only female candidate in the election, losing both times in this Labour heartland. These knocks didn’t shatter her political ambitions, neither did having twins in 1953 who were born 6-weeks premature.  Prior to giving birth she qualified as a barrister with a specification in tax law. After a short hiatus she returned to politics in 1955, and was elected as an MP in 1959 for the North London suburb of Finchley at 34, while her two children were just six years’ old.

Although still extremely young to become an MP, she had spent the best part of a decade working through the Conservative Party ranks and winning over her detractors. This is exactly what Sandberg advocates in her book: women should stick at work, and not see marriage and children as an impediment to their careers. Sandberg is also a true believer in equal partnership in marriage, with both partners doing their share of the household duties so that both careers can thrive. Margaret and Denis Thatcher are a good example of this. While I have no idea if Denis did his fair share of the washing up or if he dropped the kids to school each day, he was a fine example of a man who stood beside his wife and her ambition, acting as the ever-loving husband.

This, no doubt, helped her career to thrive. In the 1960’s Thatcher was promoted to the front bench and then made it to the cabinet in 1970, before taking the leadership of the Conservative party in 1975 and then the ultimate prize, becoming prime minister, in 1979.

The rest is UK political history that I don’t have to go into. Regardless of whether you like her politics, there are some things women who aspire to get to the top can learn from Thatcher: 1, staying power even in the face of adversity and sometimes failure. 2, career and motherhood can happen simultaneously and you shouldn’t lose your ambition just because you have brought children into the world. 3, it is not just the work/ family questions that women have to answer, Thatcher shows that women have to make canny career choices from the start if they are to get to the top. 4, To succeed, you must be single minded and this means sacrifice. And 5, to succeed you can’t be afraid to position yourself outside of cultural norms and social circles, and you should not feel guilty for pursuing a less-travelled path. This can be tough, but you must not bow to social pressure if you want to succeed.

In many ways Thatcher is still a cultural anomaly. There hasn’t been a female prime minister, or even a candidate for the role in the UK, since she left office.  This fact is depressing, but if successful women are to become the norm and not the exception then we need more women to show the same spirit and commitment to their careers as Margaret Thatcher did throughout her lifetime.

The title of this piece may sound like a political rant. It is not. I am probably the least political person you could meet. I am part of the generation where political apathy looms large – you won’t find me interrupting a UKIP member live on TV. In fact, my defence of Osborne is not only from his foes, but also from himself. If that hasn’t turned you off, then read on.

As we lead up to the Budget on March 20, Osborne is coming under intense pressure to do something to save the UK’s economy from a triple-dip recession. And this pressure isn’t just coming from business leaders and the opposition Labour party, it is also coming from fellow Tories, who want to have some chance of winning the next election. It could also be coming from within – Osborne’s approval ratings are dreadful, if they don’t pick up soon he could face the axe.

But this would be the wrong thing to do. You may say that our dreadful growth is the result of a lack of fiscal strategy, but this would be wrong. The trouble is that the economic strategy Osborne has adopted takes a long time to bear fruit and is fairly anti-growth, at least for the first few years. The opposite – continue to spend – shows a fundamental lack of strategy.  It is a return to the old way of doing things, which may have been good while it lasted, but it can’t go on forever.

Osborne came to the Treasury with a clear strategy in 2010 – the focus was always finances rather than growth. If the UK wants to thrive in the long-term then we need sustainable public services and public spending cannot grow like it did under the previous administration.  This was the path he chose, and he has stuck to it.

Public sector net borrowing may have exploded since the financial crisis when the government had to bail out the banks, but the pace of growth in public sector net borrowing started to rise at a rapid pace back in 2002-03 when it jumped to 1.9 percent of GDP from 0.2 percent the year before.  This is where the real problems began. The economy got used to using its credit card, so when disaster struck in 2008/09, and the country found itself borrowing more than ever, the limit to our overdraft started to loom large.

The argument that our borrowing costs are low so we should continue to borrow, is uncomfortable for Osborne. As he has grasped, interest rates are low until they are not and then economic disaster becomes a real possibility.  Just ask Spain and Italy, or Greece and Portugal. The consequences of being reliant on living on debt when interest rates are volatile and rising is not the place you want to be.  Look at Italy, it has a 120 percent debt-to-GDP ratio and every time it auction’s debt Rome must be crossing its fingers and toes that interest rates don’t edge up too much. This is not the situation the UK wants to find itself in.

Osborne has (so far) stuck to his fiscal guns albeit at the expense of growth. The economy has to adjust, not just to becoming an export base (that is unlikely to happen), but to a place where the public sector plays less of a role. Osborne’s stubbornness may have cost us our triple A credit rating, but it is also helping to keep our future public debt levels stable. Compared to Italy, the UK’s debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to be 74.7% this year, and to start falling in 2017-18.

If Osborne loosens the fiscal screws at this budget he would do better to give a modest tax cut.  This would help the private and public sector in equal measure and help consumers  to feel a bit more cheery. A rise in spending could be a powerful boost to the economy through VAT tax receipts and helping to create a few new jobs.

Some will argue that this defence of Osborne is pretty thin. Indeed, there is a lot more to write about weak growth and the threats to the British economy’s standing in the world.  But his pledge to get the country to live within its means is laudable. I doubt he will have another term as Chancellor as fiscal consolidation is painful and not nearly as sexy as being able to splash the cash, but it is sensible. And because of that, Osborne should stick to being Mr Sensible at this week’s budget, instead of bowing to external and internal pressures.

Groupon’s ex-CEO won’t be remembered for his stewardship of the internet deal company, but he is likely to go down in history as writing one of the best and most honest goodbye memos of all time when he was sacked at the end of last week.

Two things in the memo to Groupon employees announcing his departure stand out: humour and honesty. This has to be the best opening line in the history of the departure letter: “After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today.” How many times have we heard CEOs, politicians and other leaders use the “family” card to disguise the fact they have been unceremoniously dumped from their role of authority?

Mason didn’t stop there. Rather than lash out at the decision to replace him he actually agrees with it. He told readers if his firing was a shock then they haven’t been paying attention. Indeed Groupon has been mired in troubles for the last two-and-a-half years; in the last 12 months the share price has fallen a whopping 75%, from nearly $20 per share to just below $5 today. One could argue that Mason should have left sooner, though we have seen other CEOs continue to stay on to the bitter end – think of Dick Fuld at Lehman Brothers or the rotten crew at Enron.

Mason listed the errors he was responsible for that undoubtedly hurt the company’s share price, from using controversial metrics to rate performance that stoked the ire of regulators, to missing growth expectations. Mason was clear: “As CEO, I am accountable,” he wrote.

He is a co-founder of the company, so no doubt he has a nice package to walk out the door with. He is also a sizeable stock owner so if his successor manages to turn the company around then he could benefit financially. However, put that to one side – wouldn’t more companies benefit from their CEOs pulling a Mason once in a while?

The memo is part confession, part catharsis. As CEO Mason let intuition override “what’s best for our customers”, which he says is his biggest regret. He added that his departure allows the company some breathing room to “break bad habits”, habits he may have helped to form, and deliver a better customer experience. He ends the memo by telling his former staff not to waste the “opportunity” the termination of his employment now offers the company.

Mason’s memo has gained worldwide attention because contrition from leaders is so rare. These days people are afraid to admit failure, yet most CEOs will fail along the way. The nature of leadership means that sometimes you will take the wrong path. Most decisions are taken when the outcome is uncertain. Steve Jobs took the right path of cutting back on Apple products when he returned to Apple in the late 1990s, however, at the time he could not have known how successful the iPod or iPhone would become, or how slow the competition would be to catch up.

Mason, on the other hand, chose the wrong route; in fact the share price decline would say his judgement was disastrous. Now that he is gone, disband with his flawed vision and start afresh down a new path. Too many CEOs stick to the same direction well after the damage has been done, causing some companies to collapse.

The collapse of Groupon is not what Mason wants, not least because he was a co-founder. He has now probably delivered his most powerful message as CEO. His successor should thank him. He’s given the company and its staff the freedom to move on to greener pastures. In business, the shadows of CEOs past can linger in the hallways thwarting attempts to move the company forward.

If only more CEOs and politicians were like Mason the corporate world could be a nicer place. Being sacked doesn’t have to be humiliating or embarrassing; when someone’s time has come they should leave with dignity. No doubt there are greener pastures for Mason too – but first he’s off to fat-camp to try and shed those “40 Groupon pounds” he claims to have put on while working for the company.

Image — Groupon founder and former-CEO Andrew Mason attends the second day of the Allen and Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on July 7, 2011. REUTERS/Anthony Bolante

By Kathleen Brooks. The Opinions expressed are her own.

The developing horse meat furore is a keen reminder how companies need to always be on the lookout for the next big scandal that could rock their business. Take Findus, the frozen food company. It’s 100% beef lasagne, it turned out, was 100% beef free. The company who owns Findus –private equity firm Lion Capital – spent GBP 1.1 billion acquiring the firm in 2008.

The numbers may have added up when Lion did its analysis prior to the sale, but in hindsight it would have been more expedient to check the supply chain and ensure that Findus did what it said it did on the pack. The Findus brand has been in financial trouble for some time, including breaching debt covenant deals last year. However, through a complicated debt-to-equity deal with some of its lenders, Lion managed to hold onto the business. Maybe the effort wasn’t worth it. Lion will have to fight hard to dissociate its image form dodgy processed food companies flogging horse meat dressed up as beef to the unsuspecting consumer.

It’s not just a company’s products that can negatively impact a brand. Take sports companies and sponsorship deals. Nike only dumped Lance Armstrong once it had been proven beyond doubt that he used performance-enhancing drugs to win on the global cycling circuit. They had not only paid him millions of dollars over the years, but they lauded his image (and the charity that he founded) as an example of succeeding in the face of adversity.

Nike also had a problem with Tiger Woods.  When news of rampant infidelity threatened to topple the world’s most iconic golfer, Nike must have held its breath. As his performance on the golf course tumbled and he took time out, the relationship between Nike and Tiger was stretched to its limit.

The sports brand is also caught up in the tragic Oscar Pistorious case as one of his main sponsors. At this stage it is unclear what happened and how his girlfriend died. The Paralympic and Olympic superstar, at the time of writing, has been charged with murder, but not yet faced trial, so it is not right to draw any conclusions. However, the media will continue to delve into the nooks and crannies of this case to try and speculate on the factors behind his girlfriend’s death.

Pistorious’s sponsors will no doubt get dragged into the fray and they will be asked if they plan to stand by their man. They also need to decide what to do with current promotional material and products that feature him. If they stand by him and the decision ends up being the wrong one, it could backfire badly. Likewise, if they drop him they could also find their name dragged through the mud. These are not insignificant decisions.

All of these events are a keen reminder how the marketing machine can, from time to time, slap you in the face. If a company puts a message out there then it has to accept the consequences when things go wrong. Lion and Findus may find it can’t reel its way back from the horsemeat scandal. We will know more in April when its covenants get tested again. Likewise, Nike would be wise to think long and hard before it embarks on another huge athlete endorsement.

Image — A sample of minced meat is placed on a spoon in the food control laboratory institute Eurofins in Ebersberg, eastward of Munich February 18, 2013. The samples of minced meat are tested for the presence of horse meat as a precaution. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

This week Hollande spoke out against the level of the euro. Not only did he do that, but he questioned why the ECB is the only authority in the euro zone who has power over the currency and said that governments’ should have some say on FX policy. This is brave stuff. Hollande is questioning the notion of a free-floating currency, something that the euro zone is fully signed up to and advocates along with other countries in the G20.

Sure, there are some rogue G20-ers who manipulate their currencies. The Swiss and the Japanese do it openly, others adopt more covert measures, but for a head of a member state in the currency bloc this is a political hot potato that could leave him with some explaining to do at the ECB and also at the next G20 meeting.

It’s pretty obvious why he did it. The French economy is tanking. Its latest PMI data are underperforming the peripheral economies of Spain and Italy. The French readings for January were back at 2009 levels, deep in recession territory. The unemployment rate is rising and Hollande’s popularity is taking a pounding. Thus, he needed to find a scapegoat and chose the euro, and by proxy the ECB.

Hollande’s actions of late reminded me of an episode of the excellent Danish political drama Borgen. The Prime Minister is coming under pressure and needs to boost her popularity. She decides to organise a peace summit for an African nation split apart by war. Not as interventionist as Hollande’s actions in Mali, surely, but the reasons for the action in the first place might be similar.

If Hollande can’t win in economic policy can he win votes in foreign policy? It certainly boosted his profile around the globe and made him look surprisingly daring, especially when other nations are withdrawing from conflicts that are far away from their own shores.

However, while the Mali episode deserves a gold star, Hollande’s performance regarding the value of the euro does not. One thing a stable FX market does not need is interventionist tactics from European politicians. If the French leader can get some cheerleaders then this may only heighten the currency war theme that is beginning to gain traction.

Hollande should not try to deflect attention from his own inept running of the economy. France needs to implement a plan to reign in fiscal deficits and attract new investment and business to France to stem unemployment.

Currency wars are a hot topic right now, and Hollande is right in the middle of it, yet again.

By Kathleen Brooks.

The Autumn budget is one of two scheduled statements the Chancellor gives each year to inform the public about tax and spend plans and provide the latest growth forecasts. These budget statements are useful not only for the public, but also for investors in our debt, rating agencies and global businesses. Hence they are a big deal, and it is important that they are accurate.

However, the latest statement delivered by George Osborne didn’t quite ring true. Let’s look at growth forecasts first. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), who creates this forecast, revised down 2012 GDP for the second time to -0.1% from the original forecast of 0.8%. So rather than grow at a modest, but positive, rate the economy is now expected to contract this year. If you invested in the UK partly based on this data, you could be forgiven for being rather cheesed off that your investment had yet to bear fruit.

Looking at its historical forecasts, the OBR’s record at accuracy is fairly patchy. Back in November 2011 the OBR expected the headline measure of GDP to “remain broadly flat until the second half” of 2012. In contrast the economy shrank 0.3% in Q1 and a further 0.4% in Q2. The OBR also expected the economy to fire up in 2013 and grow by 2.1% back in 2011; however, its latest forecast has been slashed in half to a sluggish 1% for next year.

These significant revisions lead to a couple of conclusions: 1) the OBR either has a dodgy forecasting model or 2) it is relying on a hope and a prayer that the economy will perform as well as it expects. The financial markets barely reacted to the budget statement when it was released on December 5th; after all, there is a good chance that these growth forecasts will be revised so their usefulness is limited.

It’s not only GDP that is worrying. The government has pledged its credibility on bringing public sector spending into a more sustainable path and reducing our huge budget deficit.  This was Osborne and Cameron’s election pledge and it is one of the reasons that people voted for them. However, in the ten quarters that the coalition has been in power, government spending has only fallen twice. This suggests that far from austerity Britain, the government’s coffers remain open.

The most dubious claim by the Chancellor in this statement was that public sector spending would fall by 1% next year and 2% in 2014. The fact he is back-loading spending cuts is strange, especially when he plans to double the amount of cuts a year before the next general election. You don’t need to be a spin doctor to know that public sector spending cuts are an unlikely election winner. Presuming that the Conservatives want to stay in power, this suggests these spending cuts may also end up being “revised” sometime in the future.

To be fair to the Chancellor, he may be hoping that growth will strengthen, pushing up tax receipts so that the spending cuts won’t be necessary. However, the growth picture is not pretty and the forecasts included in the Autumn Statement still seem a little disingenuous.

The trouble with forecasts is that they are malleable. If a forecaster gets something wrong they haven’t lied, they just made a mistake. But when the UK’s economy remains in such a precarious state, the public needs to hope that the latest forecasts from the OBR and the Treasury are more on the button.

Image — Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne delivers his autumn budget in parliament in London December 5, 2012. REUTERS/UK Parliament

The aftermath of the U.S. presidential election has seen some tentative steps towards political harmony. After a bruising campaign with Democrats and Republicans at each others throats for most of the last two years, President Obama declared in his victory speech that there is no such thing as blue or red states, there is only the United States of America.

This is what makes America one country.  Different states may have various social and cultural attitudes, but at the end of the day each person identifies themselves as American, and they are proud. Likewise, the euro zone is made up of disparate member states with different cultures, attitudes and fiscal stances. But that is where the similarity ends. The U.S. presidential election was a stark reminder just how far we from a United States of Europe.

To highlight this, take a moment to imagine what an election in the U.S.E. would look like. Who would run for office? What would be the major issues that dominated an election? Would the people in Europe vote in a harmonious group or would there be regional variations as you see in the U.S., with the two coasts mostly held by the Democrats while the middle is dominated by the Republicans.

Let’s take a closer look at the first point – who would run for office? Right now you could imagine a neat North and South split – with the frugal North vs. the spendthrift South. The campaign trail could be fairly fiery with the North campaigning on a platform of austerity and the South pledging to do away with austerity and budget cuts instead proclaiming to boost growth.

Obviously in a U.S.E there would be one central Treasury. Thus, it shouldn’t matter who put more money into the pot as their vote would not count for more. In the U.S. some states generate much more revenue than others, yet at the ballot box everyone is counted as the same regardless of their budget position.

This contrasts sharply with the state of affairs in Europe right now. Greek elections in June were essentially a binary outcome: vote for the centrist candidate and stay in the euro zone or vote for a radical who would more than likely renege on bailout pledges and get thrown out. Germany and Greece’s other paymasters would not tolerate any deviation from the package of bailout conditions. Thus the Greek people chose the guy most likely to keep them in the euro zone.

But in a United States of Europe Germany would not have that much say. Just as the Republicans found their message of austerity and fiscal prudence was rejected by voters at the polls, so too may Germany’s austerity platform turn off voters. Added to that, demographics could also erode Germany’s seat of power. It has an aging population, unlike Spain or Ireland where the populations are much younger. Thus, Berlin may find it harder to attract young voters with its message of economic hardship and sacrifice. In the U.S. Obama easily won the youth vote who were attracted to his message of hope, future prosperity, opportunity to all and a decisive lack of focus on fiscal prudence.

An election in the United States of Europe could see the North portrayed as an un-hip and old-fashioned party, while the South could be portrayed as the opposite – full of hope and pledges to make your lifestyle next year better than it is this year.

The United States of Europe may have been the aim of the original fathers of Europe, but today it seems less likely than ever. As a loosely joined currency bloc, power is concentrated in the rich creditor nations. If you are a debtor then you have to accept a loss of sovereignty, other nations and agencies nosing into your fiscal affairs and strict conditionality for any special help you receive during your time of financial hardship.

If there was a United States of Europe, the power base could turn on its head with the “fiscally prudent” party finding it hard to attract enough votes to win power.  For example, it’s hard to see France vote for a party that wanted to shrink its budget deficit and sort out its structural financial problems. After all, it didn’t vote for that in September’s presidential elections.

It is worth remembering that the U.S. was created out of a civil war. Thus, there could be large hurdles to a U.S.E., but after watching the U.S. elections, perhaps Berlin may start to think that more political unity isn’t in Germany’s best interest after all.

China is often berated for providing unreliable economic data. Behind every release there are some who believe officials in Beijing have been at work to manipulate the data for the government’s benefit. But is China alone in this and can we trust the data coming from other economies in the West?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has a fairly patchy record at providing accurate data on the UK economy. For example, the first reading of Q2 GDP for this year was -0.7%, this was then revised up to -0.4%. A 0.3% discrepancy in a $2.5 trillion economy is no small chunk of change. The ONS even revealed that the Q2 data was more difficult to calculate than usual due to the extra Jubilee bank holiday and that GDP could be overstating the weakness in the UK economy.

And it’s not just GDP; The UK labour market has left some of the top economic minds in the country bemused. Whereas the GDP data suggests the UK economy is in the first double dip recession for 30 years, the unemployment rate has fallen from 8.3% to 7.9% since the start of this year and the UK economy has been creating jobs at its fastest rate since 2010 (the peak of the recovery from the Great Recession). How can this be? The official data is telling us that the economy is contracting yet we are creating jobs.

Some people now believe the ONS could revise UK GDP over the coming years that could potentially erase the 2012 recession altogether. Whereas China is sometimes accused of overstating its economy, in typical British understated style we could be making things worse than they actually are. If the UK economy is not in as dire straits as the GDP data suggests then imagine all of the wasted investment opportunities in 2012. The ONS’s inaccuracy and inability to account for one extra bank holiday in a quarter could weigh on growth in the future, especially if foreign investment has been deterred by the headline economic statistics that negatively portray our economy as hobbled compared to other regions of the world.

It also has another effect as there are now heightened expectations in the market that Q3 GDP data released on October 25 will be a big number. Some even expect it to be as high as 0.7% or 0.8% — levels of growth not seen since before the 2008 financial crisis. If the economy grows by, say, a respectable 0.4% this could be deemed a disappointment all because the GDP data has been so confusing lately that the markets can’t predict the trajectory of the economy with much degree of accuracy.

It may seem like I am being unfair to the UK, and the inaccuracy of economic data is most certainly not confined just to my homeland. In the U.S. there was a whiff of incredulity when the unemployment rate for September plunged to 7.8% from 8.1% in August. The market had been expecting a rise to 8.2%. This wasn’t just any labour market report; it was the most important report before the November Presidential election. This number could be make-or-break. Prior to the release some analysts were saying that Obama could never win a second term if the unemployment rate was above 8%, now that it is a whisker below this level he has a fighting chance against his Republican rival. The U.S. labour statistics are notorious for very large revisions down the line. Thus, if the unemployment rate is revised higher in the months to come it may have thrown a political election. It could also impact central bank policy as the Federal Reserve has pegged its latest round of quantitative easing to the labour market.

Investors, politicians, business leaders and journalists don’t have the bandwidth or the resources to collect this data and publish their own statistics, thus they rely on agencies in Beijing, London, Washington and elsewhere to give them the most accurate information they need to make large monetary and sometimes social decisions. If that data is inaccurate it could have huge ramifications. It is not just China that might be misleading the world with its statistics; the West may be just as guilty.