Tony Blur has suffered his first major defeat in a parliamentary vote, losing by 322 votes to 291 on a vote over whether to increase powers to detain terror suspects from 14 days to 90 days without actually charging them.
The move was widely seen as one towards a police state and when the vote came up all the opposition parties plus 43 of his own party voted against the measure.
A quick look at the list of rebel Labour MPs shows the strength of the opposition to Blair's continued pressure on civil liberties. Included among the 43 are such prominent and powerful figures as Diane Abbot (first ever black, female MP); Jim Cousins (ex-foreign affairs spokesman); Frank Dobson (ex-Health Secretary); Gwyneth Dunwoody (Chair, Commons Transport Select Committee); Glenda Jackson (yes, the Oscar-winning actress); Clare Short (ex-Secretary of State for International Development, resigned over Iraq War); Dennis Skinner (National Executive Member)and long-term Labour stalwart Michael Meacher (Cabinet offices under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan).
The result is humiliating for Blair, who took a major political gamble in refusing to back down on the plan. He called back Treasury chief Gordon Brown from an official visit to Israel that was only two hours old, and he also ordered Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to cut short an official European Union visit to Russia.
It's pretty much certain that this will hasten his demise by emboldening Labour rebels who change that Blair is a conservative in disguise, that he has hi-jacked the Labour Party and progressively moved away from the ideals that made it electable over three general elections, and that he should step aside soon in favour of Gordon Brown, the popular and very much more socialist Chancellor.
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