BRITISH troops murdered in Iraq while trying to keep the peace. Alastair Campbell hauled in front of a "dodgy" dossier select committee inquiry. Still no sign of weapons of mass destruction. And opinion polls showing the Prime Minister is - for the first time - more unpopular than his party.

Tony Blair has had, in political terms at least, a very black week.

The silver lining was, on the face of it, the fact that two threatened revolts over student top-up fees failed to materialise.

On Monday night, only ten Labour backbenchers responded to a call by Harrogate MP and Liberal Democrat education spokesman Phil Willis's call to back a Lib Dem motion attacking the "suicidal" policy.

On Wednesday Mr Blair had an even better result, with not a single MP backing a Tory attack on the idea of allowing top institutions to charge up to £3,000 a year.

But rather than being a silver lining, it was actually the calm before perhaps the biggest storm of all.

The Labour ranks - fearful of a "two-tier" education system - would have had no problem kicking Mr Blair hard in the guts, despite him already being down.

They just didn't have the chance to do it.

Rather than being won round to the idea of top-up fees, they hate them more than ever. In a bruising speech this week, Selby MP John Grogan suggested as much of two-thirds of the party may be hostile to the idea.

But Mr Grogan and his colleagues couldn't vote with the Lib Dems because, by and large, they can't abide the party's "political opportunism".

The hatred of the Tories is even more intense on this topic. They would scrap not just top-up fees, but tuition fees altogether and this is seen as a highly-cynical yet totally unworkable electoral ploy.

So they couldn't vote with them either.

But the time of the 173 Labour MPs who have voiced their opposition to differential fees in one form or another will come - probably early next year when they are asked to support or kill legislation introducing the policy.

The Government appears to be dug in, ruling out the flat-rate increase in fees paid by all students which is favoured by York's Hugh Bayley.

So what will happen next? Tony Blair will either be forced into a huge U-turn or he will put his premiership to the test.

That may appear over-dramatic but imagine the scenario at the beginning of 2004. British troops still battling to keep order in Iraq, still no weapons of mass destruction unearthed and Labour's lead in the opinion polls reversed for the first time in a decade. If he opts for the test, he may just fail.

As Mr Grogan pointed out: "How can 18-year-olds from working-class estates in Selby possibly decide whether to take a degree at Cambridge, where they will have to pay?

"I gently tell those on the Front Bench that this will be the first domestic policy issue since 1997 where not only have both major Opposition parties lined up against it but so have a very substantial proportion - 50 per cent, or perhaps a bit more - of Labour Back Benchers, and there is the House of Lords as well.

"Politics is ultimately a game of numbers, and I really do not see how the current proposals can possibly get through the House."

Updated: 10:54 Friday, June 27, 2003