Officials in search of public policy lessons have in recent years often travelled to the UK to study successes such as trade union reforms, labour market stimuli and utility competition. In at least one similar area, however, many believe that Britain's experience is not one that should be copied: pensions. Yet that is exactly what opponents accuse the administration of George W. Bush, US president, of trying to do in his plans to part-privatise Social Security, the federal pension system.

Some parallels are obvious. Britain's pension reforms were started in 1980 by a rightwing, ideologically driven leader, Margaret (now Baroness) Thatcher, with the ambition of rolling back the frontiers of the state; similarly, the still unclear proposals from the Bush administration seek to create an "ownership society" in the US with more personal freedom from government interference. The governments headed by the then Mrs Thatcher sought to limit the burden of an ageing population on future taxpayers; on Social Security, Mr Bush warns that "in 2042, the system goes broke".