Ms Robinson wants to see this problem addressed by simplifying the legislation governing occupational pension schemes to put them on a level playing field with the stakeholder.William M Mercer, an employee benefits consultancy, has a different concern about the proposals. That doesn't match up with some statements from ministers who have been saying that the labour market is completely different and the occupational pension is not the most suitable vehicle."The Financial Services Authority's consumer panel raised similar fears in its response to the consultation paper. For those between 35 and 49, the typical stay was seven years and 10 months in 1975, compared with seven years and four months in 1995.The NAPF's fear is that stakeholder pensions could undermine perfectly good occupational schemes that could continue to give a better return. Ms Robinson says: "The Government is a bit confused, I suspect. In its consultation document, it does say probably an occupational pension scheme is always going to be the best thing for you. Twenty years later, the figure was four years and four months.

More jobs are part-time or on part-time contract". But an NAPF study conducted by Pamela Meadows, a fellow of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, found that for those aged between 25 and 50 - the key years for building up your pension savings - job mobility had hardly changed in the past 20 years.In 1975, people aged from 25 to 34 tended to remain in a job for four years and eight months. In its stakeholder pension proposals, published last December, the Government warns: "There are fewer people entering work expecting lifetime employment with one or two employers ... At the heart of the plans is the assumption that work patterns have seen a fundamental shift in the past few years. The Government's core assumptions, she says, are "in many cases misleading and in some cases simply wrong". THE GOVERNMENT'S plans for a stakeholder pension regime risk wrecking many people's retirement planning because it has misunderstood the labour market, according to Ann Robinson, the director general of the National Association of Pension Funds. The visual world is a complete marvel, it's just the part that my face and body play in it that I regard as rather subsidiary.The paperback of `The Great Unfrocked' by Matthew Parris is published by Robson Books in September, at pounds 8.99. Even though the lining's in tatters, I still wear it and I'm very fond of it.

I do get fond of very old clothes.I don't want to give the impression that the visual world means nothing to me. I'm not, I hope, an ungenerous person, but I really resent spending money on things that don't give me any pleasure - and clothes don't.I really like to wear jeans or shabby old trousers I still have a jacket that I bought in 1970. I've got a horrible pinstripe suit that [current affairs programme] Weekend World bought me from Gieves & Hawkes. It's my best suit, although it's now about 11 years old.I have a problem with white shirts. Shirts should cost no more than pounds 20, but they all seem to cost pounds 30 or pounds 40, which I won't pay, so I've got hundreds of very old white shirts with frayed collars or cuffs, and some have huge collars from the Sixties I only buy new ones if I see them in a sale. I had a nice grey suit that I liked very much, so when it got a bit worn I took it to a tailor in Clapham Junction and asked him if he could make another one just like it And he did. My friends called it my postman's suit - it was a rather heavy flannel.I never like to have more than three suits on the go at the same time.

At the moment I have two and a half, although, admittedly, the half is a bit of a mess. It's a sign of the approach of death and, like the summer holidays, I don't wish life to end; when I see wrinkles it's an intimation of mortality, and mortality vexes me very much.Rather like Bertrand Russell, I'm going to pass straight from looking like a boy scout to looking like an old tortoise, without passing through the central stages of comfortable middle age, and I'm just on the cusp now between boy scout and tortoise.When I was an MP my constituents rather despaired of my dress sense. I'm probably a lesbian trapped in the body of a gay man, as far as style is concerned.I don't like ageing, but that's not to do with appearance. But it seems straight men are becoming such poofs now as well They are all into styles and clothes and scents I may have to become a lesbian.

If there aren't enough hours in the day - as there oughtn't to be for someone who's engaged with the world around them - it must be a strange set of priorities that cause you to spend more than the minimum time on the shape of a moustache or the cut of a jacket.I sometimes feel like disowning the gay community for its obsession with looks and bodybuilding and gyms. Both to me indicate a desire to spend the minimum amount of time with the razor, it's those people who clip and trim little moustaches and beards who strike me as weird.A key to all this is time. The two acceptable treatments for facial hair are either to be clean shaven or not to bother, and have a huge John-the-Baptist-like beard. For instance, if men have shiny shoes I think, "Do you really have nothing better to do than get your shoes shiny?" Similarly with men who have complicated topiary on their faces. It's only a presumption and it can be rebutted - I do know some people who dress well who are also worthwhile, but on the whole I assume that a great deal of attention to appearance in a man indicates a lack of substance. I have no style, but no style is quite different from bad style. It's very important not to make a point of being scruffy, or that then becomes a style in itself, but instead to demonstrate complete carelessness as to style - which means sometimes being smartly dressed, and sometimes wearing the wrong trousers with the wrong jacket, and giving a general impression of carelessness and confusion I do this because I just can't be bothered with clothes If people are very smart I suspect they might be hollow.