More than 20 years after it was abolished, Margaret Thatcher's poll tax remains the locus classicus for domestic political miscalculation and the yardstick by which all other UK governmental policy ineptitudes are still judged.
His biggest strategic miscalculation was not to use the leverage he had over George Bush as the only substantial western ally to join the 2003 invasion – the "coalition of the willing" – to extract a better plan for the occupation of Saddam Hussein's ill-governed state once the fighting was over (even sooner than expected).
He said: "While the threat from Russia, together with the risk it brings of a miscalculation resulting in a slide into strategic conflict, however unlikely we see that as being right now, represents an obvious existential threat to our whole being, we of course face threats from Isis and other instabilities to our way of life and the security of our loved ones".
"Because when tensions are high, the risks of miscalculation resulting in conflict are very real".
But the miscalculation that currently frustrates is Varoufakis's failure to outline how pensions, the health service, the tax system and state enterprises will be reformed under Syriza.
Experts including Juliet Gardiner and Max Hastings assess the man's unworldliness (he'd never been on a bus), his lack of empathy with working people, and the miscalculation that led the Conservative party to dwell on Churchill's achievements, rather than focusing on what voters wanted more than anything else: to look to the future.
But this week a University of Massachusetts student, Thomas Herndon, and two professors, Robert Pollin and Michael Ash, uncovered "miscalculation, data errors and unsupportable statistical techniques" that have blown the austerians case out of the water.
Yet through a mixture of miscalculation and mutual frustration, it could happen.
Some of them, former cold warriors, shared a guilty awareness of how close the planet had come to destruction as a result of accident and miscalculation.
If Britons voted to reject the revised treaty there would be redoubled pressure for a second referendum, on their membership of the European club.There is a fourth scenario: simple diplomatic miscalculation.
Cheaper than a penny stock It's not a good thing Cautionary tales Keep it weak Miscalculation Taking stock Judicial publication Our new financial column Reprints Related items The Wall Street settlement: A sour aftertasteMay 1st 2003However, banks and insurers disagree strongly over how the burden of the scandal should be shared.
