In the endless saga of Blair and Brown we have become wearily used to the story. According to the Brownites, the plot goes like this: Tony ventures recklessly out on a limb and, only when he hears it begin to crack, will he plead with Gordon to save him from his folly, which Gordon, out of deep loyalty to the government duly does. The Blairites have a different version: while Tony pushes forward boldly, Gordon hangs back, helping only at the last moment as a cynical demonstration of his power and Tony's dependency. Whichever of these you prefer, both are now hopelessly out of date. Two things have changed. The first is that after this week's defeat for Mr Blair's controversial policy of detaining terror suspects for up to 90 days, it is clear that with a greatly reduced parliamentary majority not even Mr Brown's last-minute interventions can always be expected to save the day. Dramatically rushing back from Tel Aviv to twist rebel arms in London conformed to the old script, but the result didn't.
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