There is a side of a football crowd that turns on a champion team when it minces about and delivers nothing. Man City fans may feel that way this season, long suffering Labour supporters or converts after 15 years of conservatism are shouting “Woke, get down to sorting out the mess”. They feel Labour is mincing about , charging them to sort out problems they don’t see. The only current Labour politician I have heard speaking properly was Torsten Bell when he told pension experts in Scotland “Get Real”.

Bell will get one go at this. If he takes as long getting from Bill to Act (as long as Opperman did his Pension Bill) then we will lose any momentum and the DWP will become even more the scapegoat for all of a party’s failures.  A friend of mine lives near Kent (which has voted for Reform)

I know it’s irrational, and I have 3 kids who live there and none would vote for Reform, but I sort of understand how many Canadians must feel.

Many Canadians feel that they must stand against the United States attack on what they consider “values” by being woke. I feel the same as my friend, I do not reject Reform even though I am a Liberal because they are a necessary force to get things to happen. I feel the same about John Ralfe.

Torsten Bell should listen to Reform voters around the country and remind himself that pensions are not for people sitting in a Conference in Edinburgh (there is another conference next week – on pension sustainability). Pensions are to allow the people who voted reform or considered doing so or rejected doing so but wished they could be prouder of Labour. I think , had I a vote on Thursday, I would have allowed my hand to hover over “reform” before supporting a party than change things.

Please continue reading my blogs and the brilliant comments that surpass my efforts. I don’t expect it to be mass-market stuff because if I wasn’t in pensions I would not read my blog. But some of the writing yesterday (in comments) is powered by people who know the people who voted Reform.

If you would like to read this week’s views from another part of the pension industry can do so with the VFM podcast. It provides an alternative view of the way pensions should develop. Necessarily it polarises the debate. This one talks about pensions from around minute 40. There is no guest this week but it contains an interesting actuarial rebut of pensions around 50 minutes.

We need to be deeply serious about delivering pensions to people who have had no private pensions and who have saved for one.

This has been a week when we have moved away from another plan to consolidate small pots to a much more meaningful speech from our Labour Government about changing the retirement income that ordinary people get from their savings.

I am criticised for criticising the pensions industry for spending its time on pension wokery and failing to focus on the needs of the millions who have no prospect of a pension from their pot. It is not constructive to believe you are doing fine when you are not achieving what ordinary people want for them.

I do suggest you listen to the VFM podcast, at least from minute 40 to get an understanding of my frustration and a hope that we have a Minister who will say again

Get Real!