Travelling up from London to the East of England Showground for the Great British Transfer Debate.

Al built it – we came!

Struggling with technology after my phone was claimed by Europe’s biggest glacier , 200 miles east of Reykjavik.

Reading Jo Cumbo’s excellent report on the shrinkage of defined benefit pension liabilities as people walk off with transfers.

But most of all, thinking of the  hate that infected the minds of people to drive a van into pious muslims observing an important religious ceremony.

Above all this is love

People are what the Great Pension Transfer Debate is about. We cannot allow the debate to be reduced to a discussion on liabilities. People are what the great religions of the world are about, we cannot destroy people’s lives in the name of religion or as act of intolerance of another’s views.

As I have written many times, the answer is love. Al Rush built the Great British Transfer debate to spread the love, to educate himself and his fellow advisers, to improve the quality of advice available to members.

These things are co-joined by a love and respect for each other. If we lose that love and respect, then driving a van into a group of people at prayer may seem alright.

If we lose that love then we turn the members of pension schemes into liabilities and their later lives are measured in the scales of a transfer analysis mechanism.

Let’s make it a theme for today that people are not liabilities, we are not sales targets any   more than we are targets for vans, lorries, knives and the like. We are- and will remain – people – to love and be loved.