I won’t complain, as long as we really are “all in this together”.

At present, anyone who has no savings at retirement age receives a minimum guaranteed income and a pension credit top-up, together worth £130 against the £95 state pension. So without an overhaul of Labour’s means-testing regime, delaying the non-means-tested pension would discriminate further against even modest savers.

Then there is the great pension divide. Might a Tory chancellor be ready to tackle the earlier retirement age of public sector workers?

Otherwise, as pensions guru Ros Altmann warned, “taxpayers will be funding public sector workers to receive pensions at 60 or 65, while everyone else is supposed to suddenly wait longer before receiving theirs”.

Altmann called on the next government to make a bonfire of the whole means-tested pension credit system.

“Far better to pay a better, simpler state pension to all citizens. Then private savings are safe for everyone, without penalty.

“The complex qualification criteria for an inadequate state pension can then be abandoned in favour of a simpler, sustainable system for all,” she said.

She received powerful backing this week from Britain’s biggest insurer Aviva, which said only 59% of people approaching retirement were aware of pension credit and one-third of those entitled failed to claim. “Aviva proposes that pension credit is replaced with a £130 basic state pension for all, funded by new National Insurance contributions for those above a certain income in retirement.”

Aviva also proposes shorter-term workplace saving plans for people under 25 as an alternative to pensions, and that pension savers be allowed to withdraw part of their pot before retirement “removing a psychological barrier to long-term saving”.

Significantly, the Conservatives may be thinking the same way.

Nigel Waterston, shadow pensions minister, told Money Marketing: “We are looking at all sorts of flexibilities. I think we might get away from the notion of pensions and look at lifetime savings.

“We have not got a developed policy yet. All I can say is that we are certainly looking at the Kiwi saver model quite closely.”

New Zealand’s Kiwisaver allows people to tap their accounts to buy a first home, fund healthcare if seriously ill, deal with financial hardship or move overseas.

Altmann also urged increasing part-time employment opportunities for older workers as a policy priority. “At the moment, age discrimination legislation does not protect any worker over age 65 and the means-testing of pension credit penalises any poorer people over age 60 who try to work to improve their incomes. Policy discourages part-time work and employers are not required to address this issue for older workers at all.”

John Broome-Saunders at BDO Investment Management said it would not be surprising if the Tories have “a back-pocket plan” to raise the retirement age in the public sector. But he warned that in that case, they might also allow company final salary schemes to do the same. Watch out for seismic changes in the pensions landscape.