There are no flies on Richard Smith, Opperman’s a dashboard man and promotable!
I am not sure how I feel about Guy Opperman as the dashboard dude, Richard Smith has earned that title…we’ll get to dashboards eventually but…
But onto Opperman . I am told before he makes his arrival that Guy Opperman is a “Steeple Jockey“. I think there’s a “chase” in there guys!
I have a bet on Opperman to win his next race.
This involves me getting a slap up lunch on him when he wins. I suspect he is carrying a little condition so it’s an ante post bet ; I fear I will have a wait to pick up. He last won in 2019 – the picture below was when he won in 2017
Opperman is a barrister, he can out talk us all. He clearly didn’t have a lot on – the day of the podcast- because it’s more than an hour and three quarters long.
Opperman tells us how he got snapped up by a master trust, I could tell the world how I advised Opperman against working with me, but that wouldn’t be Smart.
After 30 minutes of political shenanigans, I can see why the 1 hour 46.54 might not be enough to start talking about pensions. Good jokes and lots of insider gags but really…37 minutes of politics – GO says he’s not going to start talking about politics.
It’s 40 minutes and we’ve moved on to Rachel Reeve’s tears and we’re back into the heavy lifting of political decision makings, of manifestos and breaking promises.
Now I’m a one hour of my time to a pod or webcast and we get to 50 minutes and we come to the point where the minister decides to talk about pensions. Except we now start talking about beer and then about the Pension State Pension Bill which is more of the policies that GO thought up – with better spin.
We of course get Australia and the benefits of big fat pots of money and not much pension (means tested), Australia is a good thing, especially if you are drinking a few tinnies with Nick Sherry. We also get Jo Gibson who we are reminded again, is a GO recruited civil servant and then we get to the bits that GO and JO didn’t do, which are obviously stupid. Which of course means that DWP and HMT get untrammelled power over other people’s ideas money. Which is the first time we get what is the difference between mandation and “comply and explain” – it’s politics. Which gets us to 63 minutes and we’re back to Australia and a bit of start up Fintec in Shoreditch and Sizewell C and PFI v2.0.
With 40 minutes to go, I am wondering if I will be the only person to listen to the whole podcast and now there is something about PUK and then we are back to politics and in particular to the Treasury and their dislike of the DWP. Which must be tough when you are a pension minister like Bell and Reynolds or the Tory lady and gent who succeeded GO, all of them had a bit in Treasury and a bit in DWP, which bit goes where?
All bits went to Emma and now to Torsten and that’s better except Torsten’s going to get a proper job. Which brings us to the really big issue – “default small pot consolidation“. I’m sorry but is this what pension minister’s really wrestle with? I mean it has been consultation fodder for as long as my memory goes and this brings us at last to what started this blog and after 80 minutes we get there! Richard – did you wait till minute 80 to discover what really matters for the dashboard is small pot consolidation. I got rather lost here – I am not sure where it left us but we got there.
At which point we get GO being given the easy question – what was most cool about your being the Minister for so long – answer AE coming in at 8% – hardly Australia but we do have a proper State Pensions. GO admires superfunds in the new Bill and is disappointed that we don’t have a midlife MOT. A friend has done a Chat GPT comparison between the superfunds literature 2018 and the stuff today and guess what – it is the same literature.
So midlife MOT got dropped , which I have to agree with and the Superfund which might have been right 7 years ago, still has to have more than one player (Clara) and a lot of very pissed of financiers (let down by the literature that was issued 7 years ago). Recycling Tory policies of years ago either isn’t happening or is happening but in a non thought through basis. The Treasury man in the room dropped the ABI bomb which was the only moment of the 120 minutes so far, that had any validity.
At which point we get to within 10 minutes of the end and I am still awake! We are on to engagement issues and back to Australia and the fascinating conversations of adults in that continent which always revert to talk about superannuation, 15 minutes to go!
There are lots of questions in the boy’s ask list still to be answered. We are doing tax after 125 minutes and we are onto savings plans (like they have in Australia – savings not pensions). This is of course what is new from Labour which the Tories and GO can’t see – that’s because they’re into wealth and not pensions and it’s where Torsten has been.
At this point even GO protests that he’s been talking 143 minutes (clearly he’s a little ahead as we have 10 minutes to go). We should be winding up but…and now we get to the horses and yes GO is going to be a jockey and win a race when he rides point to points this weaker.
winning in 2017
VFM is of course about net returns on savings like the Australians do. It’s about a rating system like they do in Australia and we do at AgeWage and OMG we are off again! Now we have league tables and data management – we are in actuarial territory and after saying we are going to get to the end for 20 minutes, we find excitement.
And we are back into politics and here we get into laws about closing down pension schemes that don’t hit targets. And we are having an argument about whether the industry could ever close part of itself down – which GO thinks is beyond the ABI.
“We could talk about this for hours”
says one of the interrogators and we are into the wrap up of wrap ups and we are literally into the final minute and we’re all saying goodbye except GO who’s pissed off thirty seconds “early” , he couldn’t make two hours.
Opperman aboard for a Steeple