Britannia Radio

I send this out not because of the question about the third runway at 
Heathrow but as an indication of the state of the PM's mind

The first published comment says --- "Gordon sounds like a man under 
extreme stress and the implications are (could be) very worrying for 
him as a fellow human being and of course for the rest of us. I do 
not like his policies but having witnessed at first hand the terrible 
effects of a breakdown, I would never wish that on anyone including 
of course our PM?'

Amen to that!

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SKY NEWS Blogs     28.1.09
Tearful" Gordon's "Near Miss"

Jon Craig

In aviation, I'm told, they call it a "near miss" when aeroplanes 
almost collide.

And in the Commons, Gordon Brown came close to crashing to defeat on 
a Tory motion calling for a rethink on plans for a third runway at 
Heathrow.

The arithmetic looks like this: the Government won by 297 votes to 
278, its majority of around 60 slashed to just 19.

But the story behind the vote is more dramatic and colourful.
First, Labour MPs claim a "tearful and dewy eyed" Prime Minister 
called the Labour waverers into his Commons office one by one and 
pleaded with them to back the Government.

"If we lose this vote it will de-stabilise the Government and de-
stabilise the markets," said the embattled Prime Minister, according 
to one MP who voted with the Tories despite the emotional appeal.
In all, 28 Labour MPs voted for the Tory motion, including nine ex-
ministers.

Since you ask: Diane Abbott, Harry Cohen, Jeremy Corbyn, Jim Cousins, 
Frank Dobson, David Drew, Frank Field, Paul Flynn, Ian Gibson, John 
Grogan, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Lynne Jones, Peter Kilfoyle, John 
McDonnell, Andrew Mackinlay, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Michael Meacher, 
George Mudie, Chris Mullin, Gordon Prentice, Nick Raynsford, Martin 
Salter, Virendra Sharma, Alan Simpson, Andrew Slaughter, Andrew Smith 
and David Taylor.

Second, just hours after a Democratic Unionist MP received a 
sympathetic response from Gordon Brown at PMQs to a plea to jettison 
controversial plans to compensate families of terrorists in Northern 
Ireland as well as their victims, five of the nine DUP MPs voted with 
the Government.

You'll recall that the DUP rescued the PM from defeat in the Commons 
vote on 42-day detention for terror suspects last year.

This time, without those five votes - leader Peter Robinson, ex-
leader Ian Paisley, Willie McCrea, David Simpson and Sammy Wilson - 
the Government's majority would have been in single figures.

After the vote, the mace-brandishing Labour rebel John McDonnell said 
of the PM's "emotional and at times tearful" demeanour: "If these 
reports are true, then this is no way to decide on a major issue 
affecting the nation.

"It is no way to run a party and no way to manage the country and 
thousands of people. On this vote the lack of support on any scale 
means that Heathrow expansion is dead."

I'm not sure about that. A bit early yet. Wishful thinking, I'd say.
But whether or not the PM really was blubbing in his room, his 
Heathrow expansion plans came pretty close to crash landing in the 
Commons.