So here we have Margaret Thatcher, the first ever female Prime Minister of our country. She is here because she made several changes to the pension system during her Prime Ministership in the 1980s. However despite her being a woman, who traditionally had less pension rights than men, she did very little to change this situation.
One of her first reforms was the 1980 Social Security Act. This broke the connection between any increases in the state pension and the average earnings. It was supposed to cut spending, but it actually lowered the pension in real terms and we are still suffering from that today, despite the overhaul and restoration that occurred in 2011, then the pension was once more locked to the earning rates. It could have been worse, because the 1980 plans went further, intending to reduce the state pension, something that had not been done before. Luckily this idea was not brought into being.
The most far reaching of her reforms came with the 1986 Financial Services Act, which brought in personal pensions and also prevented employers forcing their staff to join the works pension scheme.
The idea of the personal pension plan was a good one in one way, for it simplified the system, which at that time revolved around buying annuities that either provided income for life, or just for a set term.
On the other hand, being given the choice of not joining their works pension scheme did lead to a lot of people choosing to go it alone without really thinking, or taking into account how complex this could be. The result was that many of them ended up with less money, (because in a works pension the company also put money in to the pot) as well as a lot more confusion that fell on the head of the pensioner themselves, many of whom had no financial knowledge and were forced to rely on outside advice.
This card was issued by the League of Nations, and it is quite hard to find out anything about them because if you put "Nations" and "League" you get inundated with football cards. However these seem to show the leader of each country on the front and facts on the back. I do not know if it was kind of a trumps game, highest against lowest, but it does lend itself to being used in that way as all the facts seem to be the same categories
If anyone knows more we would love to hear it. Along with how they were distributed, and how many there are in the "set".