The Overton Window is a creation of economists in the 1990s to describe the possible in policy. It is time dependent and is more than “thinking the unthinkable”, it’s “doing the doable”. Frank Field thought the unthinkable but Blair and Brown didn’t do, the Overton Window was not open for Frank’s big ideas. To quote the man who coined the “Overton Window”

The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. That is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it

Which explains why Rachel Reeves is so adamant that the Winter Fuel Allowance is only to be paid to those on pension credit. If all who could claim Pension Credit claimed it, there would still be money over from not paying the rest of the pensioner population. Reeves and Starmer are gambling against the editors of the Daily Express and , based on this week’s vote (where only one of their MPs voted against) they are winning.

The same animal belligerence as displayed with Winter Fuel, is on offer in the call for evidence on Pensions Investment. This is not a “tell me if I’m right” consultation, this is a “explain why I’m wrong” document with the inference that if you are not for the inclusion of illiquids in DC and LGPS, you are against the public Zeitgeist.

Actually there is no public Zeitgeist willing more pension investment in private equity and infrastructure, but this Government has identified pensions as the soft underbelly of public finance and the least bad means to pay for the very large bills that accompany everything from the green transition to the conversion of fintech start-ups to the Googles of tomorrow.

We have been there before. No one would have thought that Thatcher could have taken the unions on in the early 1980s , yet she not only did but succeeded when the public swung behind her. She had found her Overton Window.

It remains to be seen whether the contention of Make My Money Matter is correct and that people will accept that their pensions need to work as hard for Britain’s economic and  social future as for their own.

I am of the mind that the public are grudgingly accepting that pension funds are an acceptable source of public finance and – despite aberrations such as Thames Water- personal and public prosperity can walk arm in arm.

We are now seeing how the Government tests the Window

We are certainly not at the “popular” stage , but we may be getting from “unthinkable” to “radical”. Winter Fuel abolition needs to move quickly to policy and no doubt will , though it may do so at the cost of popularity.

The defenestration of Ros?

Ros Altmann may see the Overton Window as closed and she is a lot closer to popular opinion than anyone I know within the pensions bubble. All the same, I think the Window open and that she may well be defenestrated on this, along with another friend to this blog- Jeff Prestridge.

There are strong reasons why the Overton Window is shut. Theresa May and her Chancellor thought the Window open for social care reform in 2017 and lost an election with that misconception.

I don’t think anyone sees Winter Fuel or indeed the pension reforms being proposed as likely to bring Starmer and Reeves down. The tax cuts to pensions which were mooted by the IFS yesterday, now seemed baked into many people’s budget expectations as necessary pain and I expect the claims departments of insurers , SIPP providers and TPAs to be overburdened with requests for flexi-access drawdown and cash-stripping between now and the end of October. Forestalling is not on the cards and people can legitimately manage their finances as suits them not the public purse.

But the liquidity that we currently enjoy from our pensions may not last. We may find that our pots are taxed as they pass to our children, taxed as we commute and maybe even gated if we go for the lot. The result of which is that we may start treating our pensions as pensions and not capital reservoirs, as we used to.

The Overton Window may just be closing on pension freedoms and opening for a new type of pension funded by defined contributions.