“while we are working away, the world is speeding up” –  Starmer at his cabinet meeting on growth.

I like Starmer’s statement. Reading the BOE’s report feels like business as usual.

The BoE’s latest forecast is that GDP will grow by just 0.75 per cent this year — half its previous 1.5 per cent forecast — and unemployment will rise to 4.75 per cent. The bank also forecast inflation rising to 3.7 per cent by the middle of 2025, well above its 2 per cent target.

I am not an economist but I know that o.75% growth in the economy is what we have got used to as we flirt with recession, parliament after parliament.

What isn’t happening? We aren’t speeding up, because we think that working away as usual will be fine.

And what of those who want to move faster. I work with a company (AgeWage) which wants to adopt the mantra given us at Melton Mowbray “100% investment, 100% security“. We want to get the billions that are invested in financial instruments that do not drive growth into assets that need money to grow.

So I was glad to hear that the cabinet spent six hours yesterday considering how it is going to allow those who can and want to, to invest 100% with an aim of doing more for the people they serve.

Pension Oldie has spoken about the need to recover the DB culture that looked to take on risk and provide people with pensions through stoking the British economy for live embers. I know him, he is a man with the fighting spirit of the twentieth century burning in his body.

We are a quarter of the way through this century but we have seen no progress, indeed we have seen 25 years of regression in the pension sector which has led to wholesale investment in UK equities.

In short, the UK has decided for a framework imposed upon its pension schemes. That framework has been a 25 year disaster which has lead to there being no money in the economy to drive the growth Starmer and Reeve are after.

The good news is that Starmer recognises that even since July, an opportunity has been missed. The FT reports

The prime minister admitted his administration had been too slow, too cautious and risked being left behind by world events, telling ministers at a special meeting on Friday in Lancaster House: “We can either be the disrupters or the disrupted.”

My question to the Pensions Minister who is appearing at 1.45pm on March 11th at PLSA Edinburgh will be this.

What does Government being a pension disrupter mean for pensions and for the disrupter?