Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

How rapidly has the Blair-question been evolving? Only this morning the British papers were predicting that Blair would win this vote. The (notorious) Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair (he of the shoot to kill policy that doomed the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes), declared that it was critical to national security that MPs support Blair in giving the police the power to detain suspects for 90 days without charge.

But just last Friday, the chief whip for the Labour Party had told Blair that he should expect to be defeated on the vote. In the UK, it is considered highly unusual for a Prime Minister to depend upon MPs from another party for support for his political program; to lack a majority among one's own party indicates to at least some degree that the PM lacks the confidence of his party. Indeed, in recent days many MPs were suggesting that the vote today on the Terror Bill was a mini-confidence vote on Blair.

Blair the other day insisted that it was no such thing. But he clearly was worried for his political future, as I documented in the diary I link to above. Over the weekend, Blair wobbled all over the map. He let on that he would back down and accept severe compromises over his proposals. Then on Sunday, he reversed course and insisted that he would stand by his hard-line demands that the police be given sweeping new powers in terror investigations.

He also gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he said that opponents of his plans were endangering national security. That infuriated the Labour rebels who think that civil liberties and patriotism are not mutually exclusive, and perhaps sealed Blair's fate today.

Here is the Beeb:

Prime Minister Tony Blair has lost the key House of Commons vote on plans to allow police to hold terror suspects without charge for up to 90 days.

MPs rejected the plans by 322 votes to 291 - a bigger than expected majority of 31. It is Mr Blair's first defeat since Labour came to power in 1997.

The defeat will be seen as a blow to the authority of Mr Blair, who said MPs had a "duty" to support the police.

MPs later backed a compromise detention time limit of 28 days.

Labour has a majority over other parties of 66 but the defeat does not mean Mr Blair will have to stand down as prime minister - something he has said he will do before the next election.

Liberal Democrat frontbencher Simon Hughes said the defeat marked a "momentous day" which could bring forward Mr Blair's departure from office.

"It was a major error of judgement and it undermines Mr Blair's chances of staying on," said Mr Hughes....

In a sign of the importance given to the vote, Chancellor Gordon Brown was called back within minutes of arriving in Israel for a high profile visit.

And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also flew back early from EU-Russia talks in Moscow.

It is not merely a defeat, but a monumental one. I do not have figures yet for the number of Labour MPs who voted against Blair, but with a majority of 66 in the Commons, to lose by 31 votes means that a large proportion of the Labour MPs defected.

This will have substantial repercussions for Blair's government, for the cause of investigating the march to war, and therefore for Bush.