Chameleon Magazine

We’ve all heard the fairy tale:

“Pay your National Insurance, work hard, and when you retire, the State Pension will be there for you.”

Lovely story. Shame it’s about as real as a unicorn riding the Northern Line.

So I asked ChatGPT:

“How do we design a pension system that actually works, grows over time, and can’t be raided by politicians to patch up their latest budget blunder?”

Here’s what it came back with: A closed national pension fund that you pay into for life, that invests the money, and — here’s the twist — if you die early, your unused pension gets passed to your chosen family or friend’s pension pot.

Why This Is Revolutionary (and By Revolutionary, I Mean “Just Common Sense”)

• No More Vanishing Pensions – Right now, if you die early, the government pockets the lot and spends it on something “important” — like MPs’ pay rises or a footbridge to nowhere. Under this system, it goes to someone you actually care about.
• The Pot Gets Bigger Every Year – Unused pensions aren’t wasted; they’re invested until your beneficiary retires. Over decades, this snowballs into a national retirement fortress.
• It’s Fair – Everyone pays in, everyone gets a base pension, and those who save more get more. But nobody loses everything just because fate had bad timing.

What This Means for Ordinary People

• You can look your kids in the eye and say, “If I don’t get to use all of mine, it’s yours when your time comes.”
• Every contribution you make stays in the system — growing, compounding, and benefiting real people instead of vanishing into the Treasury black hole.
• Over time, the fund gets so large it could make the current state pension look like pocket change.

Why Politicians Will Hate It

• They can’t “borrow” from it.
• They can’t quietly change the rules in the night because it’s legally firewalled.
• They can’t use it as a piggy bank for white elephant projects or election bribes.
• It works without needing them to “manage” it — which means fewer photo ops in hi-vis jackets pretending to care about “our pensioners.”

A Vision They’ll Never Have

Imagine a Britain where every worker, every self-employed person, and yes, even every benefits claimant, is building a secure pension pot from day one.

Imagine that pot doubling in size every generation because no money ever leaves early.

Imagine retirement where you don’t have to play “heat or eat” bingo every winter.

Here it is, politicians:

A sustainable, fair, people-first pension scheme you can’t get your sticky fingers on.

It’s the simplest way to secure Britain’s retirees — which, of course, is why you’ll never touch it.