Yet even this staggering number, representing 65pc of GDP, is an under-estimate. The civil servants who calculated it – desperate to protect their own pensions and please their political masters – used unrealistic discount rates. The real bill is £1,110bn – and rising. So the cost of the additional pension benefits of state-sector employees, a mere fifth of the workforce, now amounts to 85pc of GDP. Neither this jaw-dropping total, nor the official under-estimate, appears in the national accounts.