However, Social Security is going broke. Like National Insurance, it's a Ponzi scheme. Despite the reassuring statement of X monies in "my account" (although its earning absolutely no interest is a red flag: this is a lie), I have no real account and those funds are being paid out to current pensioners.
Hilariously, one of the only things keeping the system afloat now is the large number of illegal immigrants making obligatory contributions with social security numbers that they have either made up or stolen.

I fully expect that before I'm 65 this "contract" will be broken, and to rescue the system from collapse from an ageing population Social Security will be means-tested, becoming another entitlement only for the poor. "My" retirement money will vanish. You cannot enforce a contract with a state that can capriciously change its terms whenever it likes. Useful rule of thumb: whenever the government gets its mitts on your money, regardless of the pretext, kiss that money goodbye.

There is another side to this debate: we're living too long. Retirement at 65 — much less at 60, when most UK public-sector workers plan to put their feet up — is not economically tenable as life expectancy soars. Under today's regime, council workers who eat their Weetabix could work for 30 years and retire for 30 years. Writ large, that is unfeasible. Retirement arrangements were made under the assumption that before collecting a sou, most of us would drop dead. My primary objection to both Labour and Tory proposals is that I wouldn't increase the retirement age in 2016 or 2026, but tomorrow. I would equalise the retirement ages of men and women tomorrow. And I would equalise the retirement ages of public and private workers yesterday.

Personally, I'm one of those perverts who loves to work, and I plan to retire only once the rest of the world is so sick of columns like this that you lot will actually pay me to shut up. It's a bit like agricultural subsidies, whereby farmers are paid not to plant their crops. I figure in the not too distant future that arrangement could turn into a nice little earner.