The elephant in the room.

Listening to the vox pops on the news over the last few days, it seems to me that the main thing which is so upsetting those public sector workers who intend to come out on strike is not so much that their pension plans are being altered, but more that they're being altered retrospectively, which means that those who have made their arrangements for the future in good faith based on the situation as it was, now find those arrangements may not work any more - as one woman put it "They've moved the goalposts".  Retrospective legislation is always a bad thing - purely for the reasons given.  So had the government any choice?  Probably not - and this is down to successive governments over the years not being prepared to address a problem which all knew was there.  Even back in the early 90s when I was still working I recall dark mutterings that the pension scheme was unsustainable, and would have to change.  It's really only the present crisis situation which has finally forced the government's hand - and it's now too late to go for a gradual change.