MPs to vote on 42-day detention

After all the talk, exhortations and hand-wringing, today’s the day that MPs finally vote on the Government’s 42-day detention plan. That will happen at 7pm, and we can expect a result shortly afterwards.

So what to look out for? Obviously, the key question is whether there are enough rebels for the Government to be defeated. At the moment, it’s too close to call. Over the past few days, Team Brown has been desperately trying to buy the votes of the 9 Democratic Unionist MPs in the House, which could be sufficient to swing things in favour of 42-day detention. The latest news is that the Government’s offer of £200 million extra cash for Northern Ireland has been accepted by the nine, and they’ll vote accordingly. It’s hard to blame the DUP members, but it’s still dispiriting that money trumps principle in this Parliament of ours.