CONSPIRACIES AND REBELLIONS -

Christmas finally over with and news emerges that in the New Year Gordon Brown will face the prospect of a parliamentary defeat . Why? Because he stubbornly presses ahead with plans for 42-day detention of suspected terrorists with no clear evidence this is worth pursuing. Even the DPP has condemned him, along with civil liberties groups and a swathe of MPs, including people like Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton ( hardly a serial rebel) . As the Tories and Liberal Democrats will also oppose, it's quite likely Brown will lose the vote. And he deserves to. Why? Because, as Alan Simpson says in today's Independent this is a

self-inflicted and completely unnecessary wound.

Blair made a career out of being at odds with his Party and it now looks like Brown is intent on doing the same. But unlike Blair, it's clear that Brown will not command the same kind of loyalties. New research from Nottingham University has revealed. that more Labour MPs defied the government whips in the Prime Minister's first month than any other post-war premier.
Labour backbenchers defied the whips 43 times, with the first rebellion coming less than an hour after he took over the reins of power. By way of contrast, Harold Wilson enjoyed 16 months of unity before a lone Labour MP rebelled over pensions policy. But that was in the days when we had Labour Governments which did not ape the Tories at every turn......It really hasn't been a good few months for Brown and already the conspiracy theorists are talking up talk of a plot to oust him. Things, it seems, are not going to get better......