Proof of Brown's pension grab exposed after two year battle by the Times

This morning's Times has published evidence received through the Freedom of Information Act that show that Gordon Brown was repeatedly warned about the impact his £5 billion-a-year raid of pensions would have and still went ahead with it. Brown was told, in no uncertain terms, his plans "would make a big hole in pension scheme finances".

Gordon Brown has consistently denied he has caused the current crisis in the pension system, yet these documents make it clear that he was not only told what would happen, but that he blundered on forward, even when alternatives were offered such as phased introduction of his changes. On the back of his tax grab Budget of the low paid, and the news that only 1 in 4 people actually claim tax credits, the documents show that Brown was told his changes would "lead to a reduction in pension benefits for the lower paid" and he still went ahead with it.

The Treasury denial to the Times is quite amusing as well. They called it a "travesty" of the information they received (which took two years to extract from the Treasury) and claim that "[a]nyone who pretends these decisions have led to the funding problems for pension schemes in recent years, while ignoring the impact of the dot.com crash, the pension holidays in the 1980s and 1990s, and the rise in life expectancy is simply distorting the facts."