As a result of last week’s tuition fees votes, some 28 Lib Dem MPs, very nearly half (49%) of the entire parliamentary party have now voted against their whip. And outside of government, the majority of Lib Dem backbenchers have rebelled. Indeed, there now remain very few Lib Dem backbenchers who have remained loyal to the Coalition. Just nine backbench Lib Dems have not voted against the whips in this Parliament. Of these, four – Lorely Burt, Simon Hughes, Tessa Munt and Stephen Williams – abstained on tuition fees. That leaves five Lib Dem MPs on the backbenches who have remained wholly loyal to the Coalition thus far. In addition to David Laws, they are Tom Brake, Malcolm Bruce, and Don Foster (all of whom voted in favour of raising the cap on tuition fees on Thursday) along with Sir Robert Smith (abroad on business at the time of the tuition fees vote).

Last week’s majority was smaller than we had been expecting, not least because the Conservative rebellion was somewhat larger than we had thought (and, unusually, seemed to grow as the vote got nearer). But it’s important to note that it was still a fairly comfortable 21. That is larger than Tony Blair managed over top-up fees (and with a Commons majority double what the coalition enjoys) or indeed larger than Gordon Brown managed on pre-trial detention. As Paul Goodman noted yesterday in a perceptive piece of writing, it is hard to see where the next tricky parliamentary vote for the Lib Dems is in the foreseeable future. Even harder to spot at the moment is the possibility of a vote that will manage to unite the Tory right and the Lib Dem left, the unholy alliance required to defeat the government.

Listening to the debate yesterday afternoon reminded us of the lone parent benefit rebellion in December 1997. The first significant revolt of the Blair government, there was then the same sense of loss of innocence, of some MPs speaking and voting for things they didn’t entirely believe in, and of the grim realities of government intruding. In its overall size, the comparison is about right. Some 47 MPs rebelled in 1997, out of a government parliamentary party of 417, or 11%. Student fees saw 27 coalition MPs defy the whip, out of 362, or 8%.

But within one of the coalition’s two wobbly wings this revolts was much more significant. Not only was it the largest Liberal Democrat rebellion so far this Parliament, involving some 21 Lib Dem MPs (more than double what had been the largest rebellion since the party went into government), it was the largest in the entire history of the Liberal Democrats, since their formation back in 1988-89, surpassing the 15 who voted against a levy on the mining of limestone in 2002.

In absolute terms, 21 MPs does not sound particularly impressive. But because the overall size of the parliamentary party is small, to get (crude) comparison figures, you need to multiple any Lib Dem rebellion by 7: which puts the student fees revolt on a par with a revolt by 147 government MPs in a single party government. As a proportion of the Liberal Democrats, 21 MPs is a rebellion by 37% of their MPs. That is proportionately higher even than the 2003 Labour revolt against Iraq, and gives an indication of the scale of last night’s rebellion.

Things look even worse for the Lib Dems if you compare the behaviour of the Lib Dem front and backbenches. Twenty Lib Dem members of the Coalition Government voted in favour, with Chris Huhne unable to attend due to a ministerial engagement abroad. But of the backbenchers, 19 voted against the measure last night, along with two others who stood down from the Government as PPSs in order to be able to cast dissenting votes. Only eight Lib Dem backbenchers (one of whom was ex-minister David Laws) voted for the measure, while a further seven backbenchers either abstained (including Deputy Leader Simon Hughes) or failed to attend.

The votes last night brought the total number of Coalition MPs to have broken ranks thus far to 101: 73 Conservatives and 28 Liberal Democrat MPs. On the Liberal Democrat side, the fees votes saw six Liberal Democrat MPs defy the whip for the first time this Parliament. They were: former Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell; Mike Crockart (who stood down as PPS to Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore); Tim Farron, the party's president; the new Redcar MP Ian Swales; Jenny Willott (who also resigned as a PPS to Energy Secretary Chris Huhne); and the new MP for Norwich South, Simon Wright. Lib Dem MPs have now rebelled on exactly one quarter of all divisions so far this Parliament.

On the Conservative side, all six rebels had form with the whips; the surprise was that they all stuck their necks out by voting against, rather than abstaining, which made the vote a shade closer than one might have expected.

Conservative MPs have now rebelled on 36% of votes this Parliament. And taken as a whole, the rate of rebellion by Coalition MPs stands at the staggeringly high level of a rebellion in 51% of divisions.

As we’ve said before, first sessions are usually the calm before the storm. If this is the calm, then the storm’s going to be very tasty.

Anyone intending to write anything on tonight's votes might find this briefing note (pdf) helpful, which gives some benchmarks for how to measure the size of tonight's Lib Dem rebellion.

It was December. The motivating factor among the leadership was to find a political fix that would unite a seriously divided party, and discussion in the parliamentary party centred around the idea that they might all abstain on the big vote. The Chief Whip knew it was 'not in itself a particularly honourable or logical position', but thought it might be the only means of preserving party unity.

We're not talking about tomorrow’s vote on tuition fees, but the dilemma faced by Willie Whitelaw as Conservative Chief Whip over Rhodesian oil sanctions in December 1965. We explain more in an article for ConservativeHome.

Given how things ended for Whitelaw, it may be just as well that the Lib Dems have given up on the idea...

In all the talk about a three-way split in this week’s fees vote, it’s worth noting that parties often split three ways in a Commons vote: aye, no, abstain. Nothing unusual in that. What matters is the scale of the split – and whether the leadership goes with the majority of the party.

The most interesting Lib Dem three-way division so far this Parliament occurred last month, over nuclear power. On the face of it, it looked like nothing to write home about. Two Lib Dems - Martin Horwood and John Leech - voted against a Government motion endorsing radiation levels at the EPR Nuclear Reactor. They did the same when it came to the vote on the AP1000 Nuclear Reactor. Thrilling stuff.

The first vote saw 32 LibDem MPs vote in favour of the Coalition stance, 30 did so on the second vote. But in addition, a sizeable group were abstaining, interpreting the coalition agreement’s wording on new nuclear construction as allowing this.

A three-way split then, but not one that anyone has noticed until now. We expect a far more noticeable one on Thursday.

This website was set up to coincide with the key top up fees vote back in 2004. On the morning of the vote, the tallies kept by the whips' office still predicted defeat by a margin of more than 20. Even right up to the vote, there was no confidence within the government that they had the bodies they needed to win. The whips' calculations went positive just 30 minutes before the vote, and they went on to win by five.

Compared with that, this government's difficulties over student fees are small fry, as this article in today's Guardian argues. It also tries to explain some of the Lib Dems' recent troubles, at the risk of winding up the sort of folk who read the Education Guardian. Judging by the comments thus far, it has at least succeeded in the latter.

The news that, in addition to the vote on lifting the cap on student fees, there may also be a ‘delaying’ amendment on Thursday might sound like bad news for the government. After all, voting for more consideration of something sounds eminently reasonable, much more thoughtful than voting against something, and the much-predicted Lib Dem three-way split could therefore become a four-way split.

However, we suspect that government whips will be rather pleased if there is a delaying amendment, because it will allow them to practice the age old tactic of divide and rule.

Imagine you have two MPs – let’s call them Greg and Tim, just for the sake of argument. Both dislike a policy and/or feel they need to vote against it to save face with their constituents. If both vote against, you lose. But with two different votes coming up, then you say to Greg: ‘Listen, we understand your position. Sure, vote for the amendment, but if the amendment falls, then we’ll need your support on the main motion’. And to Tim you say the opposite: ‘Listen, we understand your position. As long as you back us on the amendment, we will understand entirely if you vote against over the main motion’.

Both vote against. Both save face. Both can tell their constituents they defied the whips, and voted against the measure. But because both did so at different times, the government still gets its policy through.

Most MPs won’t fall for this. But some usually do. We first drew attention to this over foundation hospitals back in 2004, when enough MPs rebelled to defeat the measure, but they rebelled at different times, on different measures, and it’s happened frequently since. So, if there are two votes on Thursday, watch out for the churn between them.

That said, whether it’s one or two votes, we expect the government to win on Thursday, and more easily than you’d think given the way the vote is currently being talked up.

Here's something to worry the Government whips. So far this session, 46 Conservative MPs have broken ranks over the issue of Europe; 25 of them are new MPs, elected for the first time in 2010.

And overall, 72 Tory MPs have rebelled against the Government; 36 (exactly half) are new MPs.

Here's a question, which we've not seen answered properly anywhere yet: when the parliamentary vote on student fees comes, what will the Lib Dem position be?

People claim that the coalition agreement allows the Lib Dems to abstain in any parliamentary vote on fees. But the wording of the coalition agreement is: "If the response of the government to Lord Browne's report is one that Liberal Democrats cannot accept, then arrangements will be made to enable Liberal Democrat MPs to abstain in any vote".

This is slightly, but importantly, different, for reasons explored in this article in today's Guardian...

In Monday's briefing paper, we noted two potential forthcoming rebellions, one from each of the coalition's two wobbly wings.

The first, a vote on housing benefit, ended in a damp squib with only Lib Dem MP Bob Russell casting a deliberate abstention by voting in both lobbies.

The second turned out to be more substantial. While David Cameron was in South Korea at the G20 preaching the merits of greater economic policy co-ordination, 25 of his Eurosceptic MPs were voting against a set of European Commission documents on the same subject. That the two largest Conservative rebellions so far this Parliament have occurred on the issue of Europe (the other one involving 37 Tory MPs) will be of particular concern to the whips.

This revolt has been noted on the excellent ConservativeHome site. It also included a dozen Eurosceptic Labour MPs voting against the motion last night, as their frontbench chose to abstain. But that’s the thing about being in Opposition; no-one cares if you do as you please.

We learnt yesterday that Professor Hugh Berrington, Emeritus Professor of Politics at Newcastle University has sadly died, aged 81.

He was one of the first to attempt to study parliament, and especially the House of Commons, in a systematic way. His DPhil thesis was on cohesion in the late-nineteenth century, and his work on Early Day Motions as an measure of the views of MPs was ground-breaking. Like most ground-breaking work, it was dismissed at the time by some (most famously by Richard Crossman), but both the 1961 and 1973 volumes are now recognised milestones in the study of Parliament.

He officially retired in 1994, but carried on teaching at Newcastle. In 2005 the Political Studies Association awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sharp up until the end, he was a keen letter-writer to newspapers, always eager to demolish myths about the way the House of Commons worked, especially those held by people who believed in golden ages that never were.

He was a helpful and thoughtful friend and colleague to this research project and its team, and he will be missed.

For all that backbench behaviour has changed over the post-war era – with MPs becoming more rebellious, less willing to be lobby fodder – there has been one constant: rebellion has always remained the exception, cohesion the norm. Whilst the exact rate of rebellion has varied from year to year and parliament to parliament, the majority of divisions (votes) in the Commons have seen complete unity amongst Government backbenchers.

Yet so far this Parliament the opposite has been true: rebellion has become the norm, cohesion the exception. Out of the first 110 divisions in the Commons since Parliament resumed, there have been rebellions by government MPs in 59. That is a rate of rebellion of 54%, simply without parallel in the post-war era. This briefing note (pdf, 128k) explains the composition of those rebellions and puts them into some historical context.

UPDATE: Covered well in The Guardian, FT, New Statesman and Telegraph, plus Lib Dem Voice and the Western Mail.

We rise like a phoenix, or like Lazarus, or something like that. We are back thanks to generous research funding from the University of Nottingham, stumping up some cash to keep us ticking over whilst we look for alternative sources of revenue.

This website will soon undergo a transformation (launched in 2004, it is now looking a bit battered and dated), and we will be launching our first briefing paper of the new parliament this week. Without giving away the headline figures just yet, it suffices to say that a coalition government has not led to an outbreak of peace and harmony on the backbenches. What we’ve seen so far leads us to suspect that we will have plenty of work on our hands over the next few years…