Analysis: Blair's fees escape

By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

Tony Blair will not want to live through a vote like that again.

He will be hugely relieved that he did, at least, survive it - albeit by the very skin of his teeth.

He will be less delighted that so many of his MPs flatly refused to toe the party line despite dire warnings they were in danger of bringing down their own prime minister.

Brown is seen as part of Chancellor's camp

And he will be even less happy that his victory will be seen to have come only as the result of a last minute intervention by chancellor, and would-be leader, Gordon Brown.

The wafer thin majority of just five votes proved that, even when the chancellor's namesake and rebel leader Nick Brown called off the revolt, there were enough angry Labour MPs on the backbenches to take him to within an ace of defeat.

In hock

Defeat would, of course, have pitched the prime minister's leadership into a crisis and led to a vote of confidence.

He has been spared that but he knows he will probably never be able again to press a controversial policy like this through the Commons. He won't get away with it again.

Blair is left wounded

And, as far as many are concerned, that means he is left weakened - and, some would say, in hock to the chancellor.

It must put paid to any plans Mr Blair may or may not have had to use this policy as a way of establishing the wider principle of charging in the public services.

It could, of course, have been much worse and at the beginning of the day ministers were claiming they had not enough support tow in it.

New pledge

It was the surprise decision by Nick Brown to switch sides that almost certainly saved Mr Blair's bacon.

And many in Westminster believe Mr Brown acted after conversations with his friend the chancellor.

Brown still wants top job

His decision smacks of big, long term political manoeuvring.

There has already been renewed speculation that the chancellor has been offered a new pledge from Tony Blair that he is ready, at some point in the not-too-distant future, to hand him the reins of power.

This speculation will be dismissed by all concerned.

More account

But in any case, the fact that the prime minister has apparently had to rely on Gordon Brown to deliver the troops itself speaks volumes about their relative power bases.

There will still be some pretty serious fallout from it all.

There are any number of backbenchers who will feel they have been let down by Nick Brown and others who will be furious at what they will see as a government stitch up.

And Mr Blair is now facing real problems in his crusade to reform the public services.

One message from the rebellion is that backbenchers are demanding a change in direction from the government and they want Mr Blair to take more account of their views.

They have fallen short of demanding a new leader but, for Mr Blair, they got horribly close to that.