Objective End News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

of widespread unrest. taiwan's president tsai ing—wen has pledged to bolster the island's combat power and defences in a major speech on taiwan's national day. now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking. there is one question which haunts the chancellor, haunts any chancellor of any political party stopping it is, what will the iss say? because the verdict of the institute for fiscal studies on whether the numbers add up, any budget or what we these days have to call fiscal event can be devastating for a politician. that verdict ...

of the institute for fiscal studies on whether the numbers add up, in any budget, or what these days we have to call fiscal event, can be devastating for a politician. that verdict is treated like the word of god, not least by broadcasters like the bbc who have experts from the ifs on our programmes all the time. my guest this week is the director of the ifs, pauljohnson. welcome to the programme. if the ifs is the word of god, that makes you god. how does that feel? very strange. he chuckles all we are, as it were, we are a research institute who happen to work on fiscal things, whi...

ten people have been killed and eight injured in an explosion at a petrol station in the republic of ireland — police say it appears to have been a "tragic accident". protests continue in iran and around the world as three people are killed in the country. now on bbc news — it's political thinking with nick robinson. welcome to political thinking. one question haunts the chancellor, any chancellor of any political party. it is what will the iss say because the verdict of the institute for fiscal studies on whether the numbers add up, any budget and what these days we have to call...

But i change my mind really quite quickly. i started my working life at the ifs straight out of university. lots of things in between before i came back again but i started working life there. very quickly you realise that nobody has a monopoly on wisdom, they are all being a little bit careful with the full facts, as it were, but thirdly you could have much more, i could, given who i am and my personality and so on, i could have much more impact if i were properly independent. and doing the objective end of things. i couldn't begin to imagine taking a party whip now. people have to do it. i a...

Student politics behind. there are plenty of people who have embarrassing pasts! that's true. did you think, maybe politics is for me, at that stage? i think there was a point early in life when i thought that, but i change my mind really quite quickly. i started my working life at the ifs straight out of university. lots of things in between, before i came back again, but i started working life there. very quickly, you realise that nobody has a monopoly on wisdom, they are all being a little bit careful with the full facts, as it were, but thirdly, you could have much more... i could, given w...