The excellent James Bartholomew makes a point in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that I've been making for a decade now - that if our state pension system were subject to the same rules we impose on private plans, a generation of cabinet ministers would now be bankrupted and in the slammer for fraud.

Indeed, Bartholomew reckons we've been defrauded to the tune of about £5,813 billion. Nearly six trillion quid, if you like.

We've been whipped into a frenzy against private insuers for 'mis-selling' pensions, and against private enterprises which collapse under the weight of keeping their pension schemes solvent. But we hear nothing about the fact that state pensions have been 'mis-sold' for years - we've been forced to accept a contract in which we pay taxes for a pension, but where the other side (the government) just change the rules when they feel short of cash. And you never hear anything said against the stupidity of politicians who have made the regulations on private company pensions now so onerous and costly that, not surprisingly, firms are finding them impossible to maintain. Nor the fact that since 1997 the Chancellor has been taking about £6bn a year out of pension funds by way of 'stealth' taxes.

I say bankruptcy and the slammer are too good for them.