Everyone should have a decent pension.

   That's what the strikers' placards said, and they are right.  Everyone should have a decent pension.  The trouble is that the vast majority of workers in Britain don't have one, and don't have the remotest hope of having one.

   The basic state pension in Britain is worth only 17% of earnings the lowest in Europe, £102 pw for a single person, or just over £5,000 a year.  The average in Europe is 57% of average earnings, around £14,000.   Even in the Netherlands, the second lowest, pensions are worth twice what they are here.  Hardly luxury, but at least it is just about possible to live on it.   The UK pension simply isn't enough to live on.

   People here are expected to save for their retirement.  But the iniquitous means testing that is applied to the pension credit actually discourages people from saving. Which is why so many don't.   The average private sector pension is only worth around £20 a week, and yet this can disqualify a pensioner from receiving the pension credit which bumps the state pension from a £102 to £137 for a singe person.  And to add insult to injury, this is classed as taxable income - unlike tax credits or interest on an ISA.    Britain has the most complicated pensions system in the world, and many people who are eligible for the pension credit don't manage to complete the pages and pages of form filling.

   Let the public sector workers keep their pensions - but only if the rest of the working classes are given similar security.  The danger is that the majority of workers, who are not employed by the state, and who cannot afford any pensions, will refuse to continue to pay, through their taxes, for the relatively generous pensions of public sector workers.  There has to be some kind of equity here.