If we’ve seen anything in the last eleven years of this government it’s that the majority of Labour backbenchers are chokers, bottlers, happy to give, give and give on a sort-of-promise of getting something or other in return at some point in the future. That’s why predictions made by the likes of Jackie Ashley in today’s Guardian are as likely to come true as Gordon Brown launching a pop career:

If the rebellion over the 10p tax rate abolition continues to gather pace and the rebels hold their nerve, they can get rid of Gordon Brown as early as next week.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be exciting to watch - people who think politics is dull need a punch up the bracket. But it’s fantasy. We’ve seen this - the outrage and the rebellion before the standing down and the taking orders - happen before all too often. Ashley herself says why:

For after the 10p vote will be plenty more possible crises, not least the vote over the 42-day detention proposal. On both, I am 100% against the official government view and, with every instinct, on the side of the Labour rebels. But disaster is looming and the real parliamentarians have carefully to weigh in the balance what they now do, and ask how much likelier it will make a Tory landslide a year hence.

Labour has to knuckle down and swallow the vestiges of its dignity and its pride and its dignity. Make the proles poorer and lock the Muslims up for longer or look what will happen. Backbenchers might not like the policies being handed down from on high but it’s power right or wrong. Whatever happened to conscience? The parliamentary whips had it taken out and shot.

It’s at the heart of all Labour’s appeal for support it be Polly Toynbee’s nose pegs or Peter Hain’s back door. It’s not the reasons to vote for them that matter (such as they are), we’re told, it’s the reasons not to vote for the other lot that should exercise us.

So, we must make life harder for the poor and Muslims - their sacrifice is necessary to keep the Tories out of power. It’s for the good of the country. Like Moses, those making the sacrifice won’t be allowed to enter the Promised Land. They needn’t expect any credit either. But anyway, they’re largely voiceless and don’t run newspapers. No doubt their tendency (or not) to vote is also factored into the equation.

That’s the moral hazard that we expect only the most vulnerable to bear. Without it they’re never going to be bankers or city traders or donors to political parties. The aspiration of paying the gas bill is such a lowly one - who can respect that? Once the underclasses have dragged themselves to the top of the ladder, then they can expect the full protection of the state. Then they’ll have the ear of the Bank of England.

As the likes of Ashley say, we need to keep gobbling down the chicken shit on the off chance we might one day be served a little chicken salad. I’m assuming that it’s a ‘hope springs eternal’ gambit. Labour has fulfilled so little of its promise since 1997 but there’s always - always - been the chance it might surprise us. Please, please, please. Who knows, one day the Prime Minister might hand down something worthwhile for his parliamentary majority to rubber-stamp. Everything crossed.