Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair averted his first major defeat in parliament by a tiny margin on Tuesday after a frantic day of arm-twisting and horse trading with rebellious supporters over his divisive education bill.
Blair scraped through with a 316 to 311 victory in the evening vote.
The pound, which had shown signs of weakness in the run-up to the vote, briefly rallied, but politicians and analysts said the narrowness of the win was bound to dent Blair's authority.
Blair's 161-seat majority was reduced to just five votes as feelings reached boiling point within the left-leaning Labour party over plans by the centrist leader to charge students more for higher education. More than 70 voted against their chief.
While Education Secretary Charles Clarke said the government was "delighted" at winning, their Conservative opponents said Blair had been "humiliated" and was "a dead man walking."
Labour members of parliament, both loyalists and rebels, said the prime minister could no longer take his party's support for granted.
"You can't keep pulling this stunt ... You can't keep jumping off cliffs and saying `catch me.' There will come a point when people just stand there with their hands in their pockets," said Labour's Austin Mitchell, who voted for Blair.
Independent analysts agreed Blair had not survived unscathed.
"Clearly, Blair's authority in the party, although not smashed, has shown its limits," said John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde.
"The days when Tony Blair can just announce policies and get them through are over," he said.
Indeed, Labour parliamentarians said it was Blair's powerful Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who delivered key rebels where the prime minister had failed.
Speculation has swirled for years that Brown is impatient to assume the premiership, and many left-wingers now view him as a better bet than the arch-modernizer Blair, ensuring no let-up for the leader whose haggard appearance reflects his torrid year at the top.
Blair has lost, perhaps permanently, the unquestioning support he once enjoyed from his own benches.
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