John Hutton, work and pensions secretary, last week trumpeted that “Clement Attlee’s postwar Labour government implemented the Beveridge reforms”. If only it had. Ironically, it was Attlee’s failure to adopt the key recommendations of William Beveridge’s 1942 report on social insurance that entrenched the problems Mr Hutton is grappling with today. Tony Blair’s government risks making the same mistake, by “cherry-picking” from the Turner report as Attlee cherry-picked Beveridge.

Like Lord Turner, Beveridge proposed a basic, universal, state pension “to provide the minimum income needed for subsistence in all normal cases”, introduced by stages over 20 years to make it affordable. He aimed to restrict means-testing to emergency cases, believing it excluded too many in need and discouraged saving.