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The government says it’s reviving the Pensions Commission to prevent a retirement crisis.

But let’s be honest about what’s really happening here: Liz Kendall is laying the groundwork to blame working people for problems created by decades of political failure.

We’re told the Commission is back to tackle the shocking fact that nearly half of working-age adults aren’t saving anything for retirement, and that low earners, ethnic minorities, women, and the self-employed are most at risk of poverty in old age.

But we don’t need another committee to figure out why.

The answer is staring us in the face:

People don’t earn enough to save.

You can’t put money into a pension when you’re barely covering food, rent, and heating.

But rather than confront that reality — and take on the employers and policies keeping people poor — Kendall is reaching for the oldest trick in the book: blame the victims.

She talks about people “not saving enough,” as if the problem is personal failure, not a deliberate political choice to keep wages low, housing costs high, and benefits cruelly inadequate.

We’ve seen this script before.

It’s the same Liz Kendall who oversaw a botched benefit reform that left thousands worse off.

Now she’s pivoting to pensions — another essential lifeline for working-class people — and we’re supposed to believe she has their interests at heart?

Let’s look at the facts:

• 15 million people are currently under-saving for retirement.

• Only one in four low-paid private sector workers are saving at all.

• A woman nearing retirement has a private pension £5,000 smaller than a man’s — a 48 per cent gender gap.

• More than three million self-employed people are saving nothing.

And yet, instead of demanding higher wages, stronger employment protections, or a boost to the state pension — which remains the main source of income for 13 per cent of retirees — Kendall’s department is launching yet another review.

And guess what else quietly dropped today?

A new review of the State Pension Age.

The last time the government ran one of those, it ended with the retirement age rising to 67.

Now Kendall’s preparing the ground to push it even higher — possibly beyond 70?

That’s the real agenda here – or so it seems to This Writer: delay retirement, reduce the number of people who ever claim the state pension, and protect profits and Treasury coffers at the expense of people’s dignity.

And yet Kendall has the gall to say this is about giving people “security, dignity and freedom” in retirement.

For who? Right now, millions are staring down the barrel of a longer working life, smaller pensions, and delayed state support — unless they die first.

If Kendall truly cared about retirement security, she would:

• Guarantee the state pension age won’t rise again.

• Mandate real living wages to allow for meaningful pension contributions.

• Ensure equal pension access for the self-employed, low-paid, and gig workers.

• Take on employers who dodge contributions or offer only the legal minimum.

• And above all, stop pretending that poverty is a personal choice.

But that would mean standing up to corporate interests.

It would mean putting working people ahead of City lobbyists.

And it would mean acknowledging that our entire economic model — low pay, high profit, personal debt — is the real problem.

Liz Kendall isn’t about to do any of that.

She’s here to manage the optics, hand the decisions to a commission, and kick the crisis into the long grass.

This is a test of her ability. But if her record so far is anything to go by, she’s already failing.

Future pensioners deserve better than vague promises and distant reports.

They deserve a government that tells the truth — and acts on it.

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