'They Are Shameless': Labour Ministers Accused Of 'Betrayal' For Refusing To ...

[ProfessorDavey]

I think that the ombudsman position makes sens, and that compensation should be paid to those that were affected by the lack of communication ...

So that finally seems like an answer to the question. But of course none of the people did suffer direct financial loss due to the communication (a point of complete agreement between government, ombudsman and courts) so on what basis would you compensate them, as compensation is to remedy a loss. And, of course the legally binding ruling in the courts was that the government did everything it needed to do to inform them.

So you'd effectively be compensating people for failure to take responsibility for their own financial planning, despite not suffering any financial loss. Out of tax payers' money. No, just no.

[ProfessorDavey]

I do think that posing for the photo ops was playing politics, and has caused the problems.

I've already said that I think cosying up to the WASPI women was a mistake, but glad that the government has made the right call in the end.

Actually I'm not convinced that these photo ops had much profile anyhow - I don't remember this being a cause that the opposition had been seen to have nailed their colours to in any significant manner. Certainly a time-limited google search for "Labour" and "WASPI" for 2021-2023 brings up very little, and actually much of it is about a lack of commitment by the labour leadership to compensation.

And actually if you time limit to 1st Jan 2020 - June 30th 2024 (in other words pretty well the entire length of the last parliament) all the top hits are about Labour refusing to commit to compensation.