George Osborne, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, must be cursing his luck. Just 24 hours after the Treasury set out bold plans to reduce the government's public pensions bill, the High Court has landed it with another one.

This is because a judge ruled today that if BT, the telecoms group which was privatised in 1984, was to go bust, the UK Government "may be" on the hook for more than half its £40bn pensions bill.