Who needs a state pension?

PROMISING to privatise the basic state pension just before a general election looks like an act of political suicide. But on March 5th Britain's Conservative government unveiled proposals intended to lead, eventually, to the end of state-pension provision for most people. Perhaps the Tories reckon that, facing humiliation at the polls, they have little to lose. And yet, even if that is so, give them some credit. What they have proposed is bolder than any plan endorsed by any mainstream political party in the industrialised world--including Newt Gingrich's Republican “revolutionaries” of 1994. It also happens to make good sense. Despite being only eight weeks at most from a general election, the Tories have produced a plan that is workable, attractive and takes account of the undoubted difficulties that confront the project.