IAIN Duncan Smith is to simplify Britain’s complex state pension system into an easy to understand voucher for powdered soup.
The welfare secretary said too many people were left confused by a needlessly bureaucratic system when all they really wanted was something hot.
He said: “Anyone who thinks the value of the voucher will be linked to inflation obviously has not read my book I Warn You Not to Get Old: The One Thing Neil Kinnock Was Right About.”
Mr Duncan Smith said he wanted to encourage personal responsibility by promoting private pension plans based on things like soy bean futures and the next sub-prime mortgage bubble.
He added: “For many, old age is a depressingly predictable decline into Daily Mail columnists and racist pottering.
“Under this new scheme I thought of 10 minutes ago, it’s now going to be a wild financial rollercoaster ride, but one that involves thousands of penniless octogenarians living in skips.”
Meanwhile £400m a year will be saved by replacing assessment officers with an 0845 number that offers callers a choice of messages including ‘go fuck yourself’, ‘he no here’ and the sound of Mr Duncan Smith giggling with a friend.
The welfare secretary also hopes to sell the idea of pension saving to youngsters with the cartoon character Chuckles the Financially Prudent Squirrel whose exotic portfolio of unit trusts is way cooler than some gold-plated final salary scheme with bad trainers.
But teenage hairdresser Nikki Hollis said: “If it’s all the same to whoever that scary bald man is, I’ll stick with my current plan of pissing my money away every weekend on WKD and shoes and squeezing out a bunch of call centre monkeys to mooch off when I retire.”
