Ah, politicians. They spend five years telling investors and pension funds they should really be thinking long-term - and then they rip up the rulebook of the entire industry overnight. Well, pension funds have had quite enough of this - and now they're telling the government so.

The latest, and greatest offender is Chancellor George Osborne. In the days after he unveiled his great Budget "a-ha!" in March, insurers' share prices dropped like stones and an entire industry was left wondering what the hell it was going to do with people's investments, which it had assumed would be used to buy annuities.