Lucy Fisher

They are claiming thousands of pounds each in compensation.

Collectively, the government thinks that any compensation could run up to 10.5 billion.

Starmer has been absolutely clear in rejecting this.

claims for compensation, although the government has apologised for the way that episode played out.

Burnham this week said that he'd stick by them and that he was, you know, open to recompense for them.

He did.

His spokesperson then said that he was open to considering compensation before 24 hours later, rowing back on that and ruling out financial compensation and instead saying perhaps early access to concessionary travel, which he's introduced in Greater Manchester, for example, to the cohort or other sorts of schemes might be suitable.

rice miles here.

But I would say it has sparked a big backlash in the Labour Party, his waspy comments, with people saying exactly what you remarked, Jim.

You know, he can't say no to anyone.

Another Labour MP messaged me to say, oh, I see Andy Burnham has lost the plot again.

And Keir Starmer, Ally, said this is precisely the version...

of the Labour Party that Keir Starmer slayed to become Prime Minister, trying to sort of basically liken Burnham's economic prospectus to that of Jeremy Corbyn.

And in fact, a compensation package for the WASPI women totaling almost £60 billion have been promised by Corbyn at the 2019 election.

So I'm not surprised to see a backlash from the Labour Party.

And being the Financial Times, we're also very carefully tracking what the bond markets are.

MPs on the left of Labour, I spoke to Rebecca Long-Bailey, who's chair of the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality.

She really praised Burnham for coming out with his WASPI signal of a spending commitment.

And now he's had to walk it back.

I'm sure she won't be terribly impressed.