A new form of statistical abuse has, these last few weeks, reared its ugly head. This may be dubbed the “false tipping point.”

Last week a sharp fall in oil prices caught some commodity traders on the hop.The hedge fund Clive Capital lost $400 million in a day after Brent crude dropped in price by $16 a barr

This isn’t a happy time to be involved with the production of national economic statistics.

A bizarre claim in the letters page of The Independent today caught my eye.

For sheer hyperbole, few subjects stretch disbelief further than cybercrime statistics.