The rebels aren’t going quietly

There was talk earlier this morning that Diane Abbott was one of those MPs who had been coaxed back to the government side. That seems to have been spectacularly wide of the mark. She just made a bravura speech against 42 days.

Abbott’s peroration will have stung Gordon Brown particularly hard

“Any rebel backbencher with a cause knows, if they vote the right way, that the prime minister will make a statement, give them money, make a special visit. Is it truly right that our civil liberties should be traded in this sort of bazaar?”