Dogfight over Britain

The Daily Mail, consistently the most anti-Blair of the mass readership newspapers, said: "Tony Blair is today more seriously wounded than he has ever been."

It predicted that the "question of trust" will dominate the remainder of Blair's time in office, and added: "Labour MPs are no longer in thrall to their leader. He has lost their confidence. He never had their affection."

"The debacle may not mean the end of Tony Blair. Not Yet. But with (chancellor of the exchequer) Gordon Brown waiting impatiently in the wings, it is almost certainly the beginning of the end of Blair's ability to achieve anything."

The conservative Daily Telegraph recalled how the Commons has been derided in the past "for its poodle-like nature" - and that yesterday, "the poodle roared".

"The real news yesterday was that Tony Blair has, finally, lost the power to get his agenda into law.... The drubbing the Prime Minister has received from MPs should be chastening."

In The Sun, the best-selling popular newspaper, political editor Trevor Kavanagh said Blair's opponents "have tasted blood and won't stop snapping at his heels now."

"It was not just the defeat itself ... but the scale of the mutiny that has turned him into a real lame duck."