Cameron plans to stick the Gurkha knife into Brown

David Cameron is holding a press conference today to rub salt into Gordon Brown's self-inflicted wounds. This follows the Tory leader's triumphant photo-opportunity with Nick Clegg, Joanna Lumley and a small army of Gurkhas outside Westminster to celebrate their victory over Brown in the Commons on Wednesday.

Some Labour MPs are already saying that this was the day Brown's authority finally died. And Cameron is going to make the most of the PM's "autistic" inability to understand public opinion. The issue this time was the controversy over retired Gurkhas not being allowed to live in the UK.

After refusing at Prime Minister's Questions to budge an inch, Brown began a desperate last-ditch effort to head off a defeat by offering more concessions. That bought off the leader of more than 60 Labour rebels, George Howarth, who signed a motion calling for the Government to be more generous to the Gurkhas.

However, more than 20 Labour MPs still voted with the Liberal Democrats and the Tories on a motion to allow all retired Ghurkas to settle in Britain. As a result, the Government was defeated and Steve Pound resigned as a Parliamentary ministerial aide in protest at Brown's intransigence.

It was not a binding vote, but it is quite clear now that Brown cannot command a majority of his own troops, and the mood on the backbenches is resigned to a thumping defeat when the general election comes. One Labour MP with a majority of 6,000 told the Mole: "I'm stuffed. The Tories are going to win by a landslide."

Brown is facing another crunch vote this afternoon, this one over his doomed expenses reform proposals. He has already withdrawn the plan to replace the £24,000-a-year second home allowance with a daily £140 attendance fee. But he is pushing forward with other ideas.

Sir George Young, the Tory grandee, has put forward a counter-proposal saying that no vote should be taken today to allow the standards commissioner, Sir Christopher Kelly, time to report.

There is just one glimmer of hope among Brown's most despondent backbenchers. "I think that Brown could crack up," said one leading Labour trouble-maker. "Then we could get rid of him."