101 Tory MPs voted against the Government’s PlanB COVID measures in the Commons on Tuesday. They were passed thanks to Labour support. One might have thought that given the numbers it might have been a good time to get movement on sick pay (£95 a week) for self isolating people and furlough for those who find the measures hit their employment. However the Labour leader remains on what seems to be a very long and steep political learning curve so it didnt happen.
However the revolt was not the biggest in modern Parliamentary history. That is still the 139 MPs who voted against Blair’s illegal Iraq War in 2003. Lest we forget. It was however as the political scientist Philip Cowley pointed out still one of the biggest Parliamentary defeats since the Corn Laws in the 1840s when the modern Party system did not exist-that came when the Liberal Party was formed in 1859.
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