Thorn in the side who came onside

PENSIONS expert Ros Altmann had been a thorn in the side of governments – both Labour and the Tory – for years, before being made a minister.

The 0-year-old was one of the strongest voices campaigning against changes to women’s pensions, which left hundreds of thousands out of pocket when their pension age was suddenly increased at short notice.

But at the time of the last election she was suddenly offered a peerage by David Cameron, and weeks later she entered government as pensions minister Baroness Altmann.

Previously she was director general of Saga, stepping down in 2013 after two-and-a-half years at the helm.

Critics say she has dropped her radicalism and campaigning zeal in return for a title and a ministerial salary with the Tories. They say she is now happy to work for the very government which brought in the controversial changes to wom- en’s pensions. Once a frequent guest on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme attacking the policies of Gordon Brown and Mr Cameron, now she goes on to defend the government.

Yesterday morning she was put on the spot over George Osborne’s scaremongering report on the threat to pensions of Brexit – and at one point she was forced to deny that the Chancellor’s claims were ‘baloney’.

Even after being confronted with experts who disagreed with the Treasury analysis, she replied: ‘This isn’t some kind of conspiracy it’s a consensus here.

‘All the credible economic forecasts confirm that if we take the decision to leave the EU it will hit the economy. If there’s economic uncertainty markets don’t do well, if there’s economic weakness companies don’t do well.’

It is all very different from the anger of the Mrs Altmann of old, who said her only desire was ‘championing people’.