Penance may not be enough

So what actually happened behind the closed doors of the PLP yesterday evening in committee room 14.

John Craig over at Boulton and Co seems to have some insight

A transformation," said the veteran Labour MP Barry Sheerman. "Very human Gordon," said the ex-minister Denis Macshane. "Brilliant," said Defence Secretary Des Browne

or

As one senior minister Government put it to me after the meeting: "Gordon did his penance."

But is he penance going to be enough.Not according to the headlines in today's papers,this morning's Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister

promised concessions to assuage their anger over the tax change, which ministers admitted yesterday would leave more than five million of the poorest people worse off.
Insisting that he understood the pressures on ordinary families, Mr Brown said: "I understand how difficult it is when food prices and fuel prices are rising. It is difficult out there and I understand that. People want to know we get it and understand their anxieties."

but

The Labour rebels - who are thought to number at least 50 - said that Mr Brown's concessions would not come soon enough. They fear that the decision to scrap the rate could lead to Labour being punished severely in next week's local elections.

And the Guardian says

his intervention apparently failed to convince a number of disaffected backbenchers as it emerged late last night that at least 35 MPs had signed a motion requiring the government to postpone the tax change until it had produced a compensation package for the poorest affected.

And on the today programme this morning backbencher Gisela Stuart said

only more "precise plans" of compensation measures to those made worse off by the abolition of the 10p tax would placate many of the Labour rebels.
"We are looking for clear signs of how they will be compensated.
"Just some vague promise, I don't think will satisfy us or our voters,"