All this leaves pension reliefs as the most likely source of additional revenue. Starting as far back as Nigel Lawson, these have been under attack for decades. The present Chancellor has continued in much the same vein, repeatedly eating into lifetime and annual reliefs. Now he’s considering going the whole hog and doing something truly transformational. All of the options being examined would have caused uproar in the pensions industry, in middle England and beyond had they been announced out of the blue. In the event, the Chancellor has been quite canny in the way he’s prepared the ground.