On entering pensions in 2001, I met people who exuded an aura of understanding all there is to know about the business.

Recently at a small, intimate and otherwise cordial briefing, shadow pensions minister Gregg McClymont was bluntly asked whether he agreed that Steve Webb is the greatest pensions minister who has ever lived.

Pensions is full of concepts that require the learner to ask the expert to explain them two, three, four, five times before they finally understand.

Britain’s relationship with the EU is fraught to say the least. We are outside the eurozone, unhappy with the jurisdiction of the EU courts and locked out of the Franco-German love-in.

January saw a glut of consultation and policy change for defined contribution schemes. Here is a summary of the big changes.

In all the agonising about how to overcome the hurdles presented by auto-enrolment, hardly anyone mentioned the unions as a potential remedy. This is a mystery, because unions previously played a big role in the creation of the world’s most famous and successful system of auto-enrolment, that of Australian superannuation.

Momentum has grown among European governments and pension funds to force the EU to drop its proposals for higher capital requirements that threaten “terminal damage” to defined benefit schemes.

Employees aged over 50 have been the cohort most likely to opt out of auto-enrolment, with those closest to retirement putting less value in a workplace pension, early figures from Legal & General show.

The lazy habit of blaming everything on Margaret Thatcher still persists among those of a certain age, but there are of course a few areas where it is valid.