Pension levy is a stealth tax on thrift and those who built up their savings

THE LAST week has seen an enormous outpouring of national introspection in relation to how we will get out of the economic mess.

At the heart of this has been the as ever controversial and polemical Prof Morgan Kelly, whose proposal at the weekend that we ditch the bailout and simultaneously close the gap in the national finances in the course of one year has been at one and the same time reviled and welcomed.

Kelly deserves enormous kudos for being the (almost) lone voice in the wilderness, calling the property bubble for what it was and in doing so dropping the scales from many of our eyes, and more latterly for holding up a stark mirror to the folly that has been the banking rescues.