THE Conservative Party's chief whip, David Maclean, is still celebrating after Prime Minister Tony Blair was made to suffer his first defeat in the House of Commons.

The MP for Penrith and the Border said that the Labour Party's whips had misjudged the position, and had wrongly believed that 20 Conservative MPs were going to vote with the Government over plans to detain terrorist suspects for up to 90 days.

However, Mr Maclean said that the Conservatives were "not in a rebellious mood anymore".

The Government lost the vote by 31, with only one Conservative MP supporting the plan. Mr Maclean said that the 49 Labour MPs who voted against the Government represented an "extraordinary rebellion".

Mr Maclean echoed what his party leader, Michael Howard, had said, that the Government had not quoted one case that showed it would have been necessary to keep a suspect for 90 days.

"They did not produce a single justification for extending it," he said.

"If we had a real terrorist, I would lock them up for 9,000 years I would prefer to execute them - (but) you can't have innocent people locked up for three months by mistake."

He said one of the best speeches in the debate had been made by Conservative MP for Lancaster and Wyre Ben Wallace, who had served in Northern Ireland, and spoke about the bitterness created by the policy of internment without trial.

As chief whip, Mr Maclean was a signatory to the amendment tabled by Labour backbencher David Winnick, that allowed a maximum 28-day detention, and which was passed by a majority of 33.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron also voted against the Government, and said that the freedoms won in two world wars should not be given up easily.

"To give up freedoms would mean the terrorists would have secured a victory of some sorts because they would have changed the way we do things in this country," he said.

John Hutton, MP for Barrow and Furness, and newly-appointed Work and Pensions Secretary, voted with his Government.