Thanks to all those who’ve been in touch with queries about us having our funding withdrawn. Hence, unfortunately, the lack of any analysis of the expenses votes. We were also hoping to do lots of pre-election analysis, as well as work on the state of the parties when the new parliament met. Sadly, it looks like we might have to put all that on ice, although we’re still looking around at alternatives. Lots of you have said how useful the site's been -- but unfortunately that seemed to cut no ice with the research council...

The key to explaining the government's defeat over the Gurkhas lies in finding out who abstained. A total of 27 cross-voters (and it is 27 -- the BBC have included Bob Wareing, but he no longer takes the whip) would not be enough to defeat the government, without a substantial number of absences. So if we were journalists with lobby passes, we'd be asking about both authorised and unauthorised absences. The last time the Government went down to defeat in the Commons, over Racial and Religious Hatred, it was at least partly because too many MPs had been allowed to leave Westminster. Did the same happen here?

But those cross-voting are interesting as well. All except Joan Humble and Stephen Pound had already rebelled against Brown, but they now bring to 119 the number of Labour MPs to vote against the whip since Gordon Brown became PM. And it's interesting that both Ian Cawsey and Shona McIssac, who both rebelled recently over ports for the very first time, did so again today. Other non-usual suspects included Nick Raynsford and Andrew Smith (who rebelled over Heathrow, casting their first rebellion against Brown), and Nick Palmer and Gordon Marsden, who have both only defied Brown once before.

Once they do it for the first time, it's easier to do it again -- as today proved.

Including today's there have been 32 rebellions on assorted Opposition Day motions since 1997. None of them had resulted in government defeats - for reasons we explained before here. So a defeat on a Opposition Day - however nominal in theory - is not to be shrugged off lightly. For the Brown government to have suffered its first defeat on an Opposition Day motion, and with a nominal majority in the 60s, is terrible.

The largest rebellion on an Opposition Day since 1997 was the 28 who rebelled over Heathrow expansion in January of this year.

More to follow, maybe, once we see the division lists. Trouble is, we're having to go a bit slow, as a result of having our funding withdrawn, so this might be the last rebellion we deal with. More on that also later...

UPDATE: We've been told that there were 27 Labour rebels who voted against the Government. If so (and we're always sceptical until we've seen the full division list), it's not even the largest revolts suffered by Brown since he became PM, not even the largest on an Opposition Day motion. So the interesting bit is going to be not who voted against the whip, but those who simply stayed away. A total of 27 cross votes is not sufficient to defeat this government, without a substantial number of abstentions.

UPDATE 2: We've now been told it's 28 Labour cross-votes. But that still just makes it the same as over Heathrow, and not the largest rebellion Brown's faced either.

Last month, the ESRC's Genomics Forum organised a retrospective conference on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. Details here. For those interested in the parliamentary part of the process, there was an interesting presentation by Phil Willis (with his slides here), as well as one by one of us. The latter takes about 30 minutes, although if you stripped out the um's and ah's, it'd be down to about five minutes or so.

1 April saw two previously loyal Labour MPs – Ian Cawsey and Shona McIssac - cast their first ever dissenting votes. The issue? Retrospective rating charges on firms operating in British ports. A Conservative Opposition prayer tried to annul these rules, but when the Tory frontbench didn’t move their own motion, four Labour MPs plus UKIP MP, Bob Spink divided the House. The common link between all four rebel Labour MPs? They all represented constituencies with large ports: Frank Field (Birkenhead), Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole), Shona McIssac (Cleethorpes) and Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby). Austin accused the Government of 'impotence turned into a chorus of castrati'. Sounds painful to us.

The day also saw the largest Conservative rebellion of the session so far: 18 Tory backbenchers opposed the programme motion for the Geneva Conventions and UN Personnel (Protocols) Bill. Many of these renegade Tory MPs had spent the afternoon filibustering during the Second Reading of the Bil, angry that so much legislation of this kind is being passed through the Commons with the minimum of debate.

Exactly a year since they last raised the issue, the Conservatives moved an Opposition Day motion yesterday calling for an inquiry into the war in Iraq. And almost exactly the same number of Labour MPs supported them in the aye lobby as they did a year before.

Thirteen Labour backbenchers voted in favour of an inquiry to be led by an independent committee of privy counsellors, up just one from the dozen Labour MPs who rebelled on the issue twelve months ago. David Taylor and Paul Truswell cast deliberate abstentions in both lobbies, as the Government won the vote by 303 votes to 265, a majority of 38. A dozen Labour MPs then opposed the subsequent Government amendment to the Tory motion, which recognized that ‘a time will come when an inquiry is appropriate’ but declining ‘to make a proposal for a further inquiry at this time’, Taylor again abstaining by double voting. This time, the Government won by 36.

Earlier this week, the Report stage of the Coroners and Justice Bill saw four separate rebellions, involving a total of 28 Labour MPs. There was a revolt by Corbyn and McDonnell over the Bill’s third programme motion, and one Labour MP – Paul Farrelly – voted against the Bill’s Third Reading.

But the more interesting splits came over matters of death and sex.

The largest rebellion on Monday saw 19 Labour MPs support a Liberal Democrat amendment that would have prevented some inquests being held in private and without a jury. The Government won the vote by 263 votes to 229, more or less halving their majority to 34. Ministers appear to have averted defeat by offering a number of concessions: instead of the jury being removed automatically (as the Government originally proposed), a High Court judge will now consider whether to remove the jury; and the grounds on which a certificate can be issued by the Secretary of State permitting an inquest without a jury were also altered, removing the catch-all ‘real harm to the public interest’ provision.

On Tuesday, when the Report stage of the Bill resumed, MPs debated matters of sex rather than death. Ten Labour MPs with strong religious beliefs supported David Taylor's amendment that would have had the effect of reinserting a free speech saving clause to an offence prohibiting incitement of hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation. The offence had already been created by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, but the Government, then up against a end-of-session deadline to pass another piece of legislation - the Offender Management Bill - had accepted an amendment in the name of Lord Waddington, the former Tory Home Secretary, that would have allowed discussion or criticism of sexual conduct’ or ‘the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct’. On Tuesday, the Government sought to remove Waddington’s free speech amendment, provoking Tom Harris to speak and vote against the Government on a three-line whip for the first time since he became a Labour MP in 2001. Harris believed that removing the Waddington amendment would raise ‘public concern that a person who voices an opinion that is not considered to be politically correct could end up being questioned by police.’ The ten Labour rebels were joined by two Liberal Democrats – Sir Alan Beith and Tim Farron - in the aye lobby alongside nearly the whole of the Conservative parliamentary party, apart from John Bercow, who voted with the Government in the no lobby. The amendment was heavily defeated by 328 votes to 174. Harris explains his position on his (excellent) blog.

Nick Brown apparently gave a very entertaining speech last week to the lobby, which included a reference to a rather good book on backbench behaviour.

He was said to be calling for tighter discipline from Labour MPs – with an especial attack on Labour MPs who were not pulling their weight. He noted that a hardcore rump of five per cent of Labour MPs are responsible for a quarter of all ‘unauthorised absences’ from the Commons. ‘Idleness creates a burden on the rest of the people’, he said.

Indeed it does.

But we suspect a subtext here. For sure, some of those unauthorised absences will be lazy MPs, popping home to watch Eastenders rather staying late to vote on the Sheep Farming (Wales) (No 2) Bill.

But unauthorised absences can also be caused when MPs absent themselves from a vote because they want to abstain. So, whilst some of this is a crackdown on the lazy, it’s also a crackdown on those who absent themselves from the lobbies on principle. When it comes to actual votes cast, the relationship is even sharper than Brown noted. Almost *half* of all rebellious votes cast against the whip since 2005 have come from just five per cent of Labour MPs. The subtext here, we suspect (but then we’re old and cynical) is to equate rebellion with lazy, with not pulling your weight, with not being comradely.

If the Commons allowed an abstention option, as the Modernisation Committee recommended in one of its earliest reports back in the early days of the Blair Premiership, then a crackdown on no shows wouldn’t be a problem. Absent that, it might just result in more people casting votes in both lobbies (as David Taylor does regularly), a practice that has been deprecated by the Speaker. It might, however, also cause MPs who would have been happy absenting themselves, turning up in order to vote against the whips. Is that really what they want?

Yesterday, the first decent-sized cracks appeared among Labour backbenchers over the Government’s support for people during the recession, with a total of 36 Labour MPs rebelling during the Report stage of the Welfare Reform Bill.

In the largest revolt, 30 Labour MPs supported Dr Lynne Jones’ clause that would have removed the lower rate of jobseeker’s allowance for 18-25 year olds. (Treasury Select Committee chairman, John McFall appears to have cast a deliberate abstention by voting in both lobbies.) Conservative frontbench support for the Government ensured that the new clause was defeated by 408 votes to 85.

Twenty-six Labour MPs then supported John McDonnell’s amendment that would have rendered the ‘work for benefit’ proposals scheme in the bill an offer rather than an imposition. One Conservative MP – Richard Shepherd – supported the rebels in the aye lobby, but once again the Conservative frontbench sided with the Government, resulting in a 396–76 defeat for the amendment. Finally, 29 Labour MPs supported a Conservative frontbench amendment that would have prevented the work-related requirements in the bill from applying to a single parent with a child under five. Gordon Brown’s old Treasury colleague, Geoffrey Robinson appears to have cast a deliberate abstention by voting in both lobbies. Despite this large Labour rebellion, the Government won the vote by 260 votes to 217, a comfortable majority of 43.

Yesterday’s Labour rebellions were overwhelmingly comprised of a fairly predictable bynch. All except one MP – David Clelland – had already defied the whip under Gordon Brown’s leadership, and even Clelland has slight form from the Blair era.

After nearly a week of expressing their objections, two dozen MPs who were unhappy with allowing the UK Youth Parliament to debate in the Chamber of the House of Commons this summer finally got want they wanted yesterday: a longish debate (2 hours, 22 minutes) and a vote - or a series of votes on the issue.

And then they lost decisively.

Twenty three MPs (including tellers) supported an amendment in the name of Christopher Chope calling for the Youth Parliament to speak in Committee Room 14, rather than the main Chamber, but this was defeated by 207 votes to 21. The twenty Tory backers of the amendment included: former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith; the former Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis; and the former multiple leadership candidate, John Redwood. But perhaps the biggest surprise was to see Tommy McAvoy, the longest serving Labour whip voting in favour of the amendment, a clear sign that the vote was free on the Labour side (Tory backbenchers had a free vote, although according to Chope that luxury was not extended to their frontbench). Colin Burgon was the only other Labour MP to support the amendment, while Bob Russell was the only Liberal Demcrat MP to do so. The DUP's Gregory Campbell also voted in the aye lobby.

When the main question was put, nineteen MPs (not 18 as shown in Hansard) - 15 Conservative, two Labour, one Lib Dem and 1 DUP, voted against, with 205 voting in favour.

A group of ten renegade Conservatives evoked the spirit of the late Eric Forth on Wednesday when they tried to hold up the business of the House of Commons by raising points of order, and calling divisions on normally uncontentious issues. The reason? The idea of members of the UK Youth Parliament sitting on the hallowed green benches during the summer recess.

Tory backbench opposition the teenage hordes meant that the House was treated to a division on the Child Support Regulations 2009, with six Tories voting against the Government, while the rest of the Conservative frontbench abstained. And while no-one had raised any objections to a European take note motion on ozone depleting substances during Committee, eight Tory MPs found a reason to do so, calling yet another division. When the motion to allow the Youth Parliament to sit on the green benches was read out, honourable members shouted ‘Object’.

Earlier, the House was treated to another old-fashioned Conservative split over Europe on the subject of energy security. While two Europhiles – John Gummer and Ian Taylor – supported the Government’s motion, five Euro-sceptics – William Cash, Mark Field, John Hayes, John Redwood and Richard Shepherd – voted against, as once again the Conservative frontbench abstained. Alan Simpson was the only Labour MP to vote against the motion. The most obvious name missing from the aye lobby was Kenneth Clarke. Now that the hon. Member for Rushcliffe has rejoined the Tory frontbench, he has to behave himself on all matters European.

Tuesday saw the Government come to Parliament to ask for the renewal of control orders, for the fourth time since they were introduced in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. In 2006, the orders were agreed without a division. In February 2007, just two Labour MPs rebelled. A year later, just three did. This time, the number of rebels had risen to 16. The rebellion also saw Diane Abbott and Andrew Mackinlay cast deliberate abstentions in both lobbies. With the Conservative frontbench abstaining three Tory backbenchers – Douglas Hogg, Richard Shepherd and Robert Walter – also voted against the renewal order.

Both Opposition parties also boycotted the introduction of Regional Select Committees, objecting to the fact that each committee will have an in-built Labour majority, regardless of the political representation in each region. As a result of the Opposition boycott, a series of motions were passed in which only Labour MPs were appointed to the new regional bodies. Can’t see that working well.

The final division of the evening was on a motion that the new Chairman of the Committee on Members’ Allowances, Don Touhig, should be paid in line with chairmen of other select committees. Labour split 229/9 in favour, the Conservatives split 11/27 against (with most Tory MPs sitting out the vote), while Lembit Opik was the only Lib Dem MP to vote in favour of the motion, as 30 of his colleagues voted against.

The Heathrow rebellion on 28 January 2009 saw 28 Labour MPs vote against their party line, after a lot of work by the whips to limit the revolt. Yesterday, 24 February, there was a ten minute rule bill, moved by Lib Dem MP, Susan Kramer, which proposed to amend the Planning Act 2008 to require parliamentary approval for the construction of ‘new major airports and additional runways at existing major airports’. Despite Kramer’s Bill gaining a Second Reading by 247 votes to 203, without Government time it will fail. It is, however, interesting because of the light it throws on the real divisions within the PLP on the issue, given the private members bills are unwhipped.

Yesterday 23 Labour MPs backed Kramer’s bill. Of the 23 Labour MPs who supported Kramer’s Bill, 15 had voted against the Government on Heathrow on 28 January. But a further eight who backed Kramer’s Bill either voted for the Government on 28 January or abstained/did not vote: Hugh Bayley (for), Colin Challen (dnv), Katy Clark (dnv), Bill Etherington (dnv), Martin Linton (for), Paul Truswell (dnv), Dr Rudi Vis (dnv) and Mike Wood (dnv). Take the 15 Heathrow rebels from 28 January who also voted for the Kramer Bill together with these eight and then add the 13 Labour MPs who voted against Heathrow on 28 January but either missed or sat out yesterday’s debate (12 of them did not vote yesterday, only one - Nick Raynsford - supported the Government), then we reach the magic total of 36, just enough to have defeated the Government in January. You can see how hard – and how successfully – the whips worked at dividing and conquering.

There was one further, tiny, rebellion as well: Alan Simpson was the only Labour MP yesterday to support a Conservative Opposition Day motion calling for ‘unambiguous labelling’ of food, stating the country of origin to enable British consumers to show their preference for home-grown food.

The Post Office is a tricky one for the Government whips (Exhibit A: the 108 Labour MPs who have signed Geraldine Smith’s EDM warning the Government that selling a minority stake in the Royal Mail would risk fracturing ‘one of Britain’s greatest public services’) because for most Labour MPs it sees a toxic combination of ideological predispositions reinforced by constituency pressure.

Since Labour entered Government in 1997, anything that involved the privatisation, part-privatisation or ‘marketisation’ of public services has proved unpopular with Labour backbenchers: from the part-privatization of National Air Traffic Services in the first Blair term, to foundation hospitals and tuition fees in the second, through to trust schools and probation service reform in the current Parliament. Moreover, this particular issue gets the public worked up in a way which none of those other issues did: plenty of Labour MPs reported being under serious pressure from constituents during recent post office votes, as well as knowing full well the damage rival election candidates can inflict with the issue.

So far the issue has seen votes cast in anger on four occasions since 1997, three of these in the last session. And although the number rebelling on each occasion has been relatively small – the largest saw 19 vote against their whips – they were all on Opposition Day motions, where the numbers rebelling are always small.

Yesterday’s Opposition Day debate saw a Conservative motion calling on the Government to implement rapidly the Hooper review, supporting the partial privatization of the Royal Mail. So no surprise no Labour MPs rebelled. But the Government whips will know that the issue has not gone away. Of these 108 Labour MPs, just over three-quarters have rebelled against Gordon Brown’s leadership already. We think the Tory tactics are clever: by supporting the Government now, they will help maximize the Labour rebellion when it comes on a vote of substance.

UPDATE: There was, however, a small Conservative rebellion, as picked up by ConservativeHome.

UPDATE 2: A closer inspection of the day's division lists reveals that both Wintertons plus Sir Patrick Cormack were in attendance earlier in the day during a vote on Housing waiting lists, but mysteriously disappeared on both votes on Royal Mail. So there's at least a handful of unhappy Conservatives over this issue.

Six Conservative MPs broke ranks yesterday against a second money resolution for the Banking Bill. Last year, the Government asked for £40 billion from taxpayers to bail out the banks, but now we need another £200 billion. Mark Hoban, the Conservative frontbench spokesperson, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, and called on his troops to abstain, as did Colin Breed, the Lib Dem spokesperson.

John Redwood didn’t agree, calling it 'the biggest, most important and most dramatic money resolution I have ever seen in the House of Commons', while Richard Shepherd argued that the Commons was being marginalised 'in the undertaking of its most fundamental duty, which is the supply of money.' These two were joined by Bill Cash (appropriately enough), David Heathcoat-Amory and Peter Bone and Philip Davies - both new boys from the 2005 intake - in voting against the resolution. A trio of other mavericks joined them in the no lobby: whipless Tory MP, Andrew Pelling; UKIP MP, Bob Spink; and former Labour MP, Robert Wareing. The resolution was carried overwhelmingly by 273 votes to 7.