Just for a while it had all looked so hopeful… Ros Altmann had declared her heart had all along been on the side of the WASPI campaigners (Women Against State Pension Inequality), but had only been held back by that difficult Iain Duncan Smith.

Stephen Crabb’s appointment to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions also appeared to open new doors.

Now it’s back to square one, with a statement by Mr Crabb to the effect that he has no plans for further concessions beyond those made in 2011 (and which rowed back slightly on the original plans for state pension age rise acceleration).

“Let us be clear: there is no party in this chamber that has a clear and coherent policy for unwinding the changes that have been made since 1995 to equalise the state pension ages. I therefore have no plans to bring forward further concessions.”

So is that the end?

I can’t personally see the WASPI campaigners going away any time soon. They have also attracted a lot of support across the board, including some members of their own party.

Most importantly, the recent history of this Government has been a series of statements firmly entrenching their position – on in-work tax credits, Personal Independent Payments, school academies, the 3,000 child refugees et al – followed by humbling U turns as they realised that they were swimming against the tide of public opinion.

This is a Government with a very small working majority, and while it has the luxury of being opposed by a party whose effectiveness is significantly curtailed by internal fighting, it is contending with some rebellious backbenchers and an emboldened House of Lords. It has also hit the rocks on a number of occasions with the right-leaning media who, sometimes to everyone’s surprise, have come out against Government policy.

Being made to look like the “nasty party” is not where you want to be positioned for the rest of a term of government, especially when there is the counter argument constantly being made that billions are being lost to the nation’s coffers through tax avoidance.

Get everyone to pay their fair share of taxes, goes the argument, and we wouldn’t need the cheese-paring.

The Government is prone to being portrayed as being “out of touch” with what the man and woman in the street is thinking on key issues, and this is being amplified through social media – which also regularly serves as a driver for the press, keen to stay onside with its readership. When newspapers want to know what the man on the Clapham omnibus is thinking, they need go no further than Twitter or Facebook.

Where now? In Stephen Crabb’s statement he said: “No party in this chamber that has a clear and coherent policy for unwinding the changes that have been made since 1995 to equalise the state pension ages” – a sideswipe at the Labour party for its lack of an alternative. But that is not quite what the WASPI campaigners are asking for.

They are simply asking for relatively modest (in the bigger scheme of things), transitional arrangements for those worst affected.

Everyone knows the ship has sailed on state pension ages rising in the future – it’s the speed of the boat that is being questioned.

My personal take on this is that if the opposition parties mounted a coherent campaign with a sensible and costed set of proposals, took it out of the realm of party politics (and so attract backbench Tory support) and got the rest of the country and the media behind them, there is still a prospect for victory.

The Government is fighting wars on a number of fronts at the moment, and it might find it easier to give ground here rather than face the disruption and loss of support it will surely encounter by continuing this particular battle.

This might seem a dark moment for the WASPI campaigners, but in Thomas Fuller’s words: “the darkest  hour of the night comes just before dawn.” This might just be that hour.

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