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While it may be possible to invest in funds that lure offshore, they are not offshore in the tax-dodging sense - all realised gains and income from pension are taxable.
Cameron's 'offshore' investment was exactly this too. He paid the appropriate taxes (nil, since the gain was less than the CGT threshold) when he sold the shares and brought the money back onshore.
In this regard it isn't different to buying and selling normal (onshore) shares, in that you only pay the appropriate taxes when you sell the things (not just for holding them); and only if you've gained enough (which he didn't anyway).
This isn't what people should be getting annoyed about.
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Greenbank
No they don't. Pensions funds, more often than not, have very strict rules about where they can be invested.
While it may be possible to invest in funds that lure offshore, they are not offshore in the tax-dodging sense - all realised gains and income from pension are taxable.
You might point it that investing in pension defers income tax, and may result in a lower effective marginal rate over a tax payer's lifetime though. So, on that respect, it is tax avoiding. But not the same league as offshore shell companies governed by bearer bonds, the sole purpose of which is to obfuscate beneficiaries and avoid any tax anywhere.
And paying for insurance is not investing...