The nine former ministers who have spoken out about the abolition of nursery vouchers are not the first Labour MPs to be uncomfortable with the policy (unveiled during Gordon Brown’s conference speech).

There is an early day motion, written by Mark Durkan, which has the names of 45 Labour MPs - excluding the nine ten* Blairites in today’s Guardian (including Patricia Hewitt, Meg Munn and Denis Macshane) who have signed a letter from the Progress group. In total the EDM is signed by 78 MPs.

It’s debatable whether that represents a significant rebellion against the prime minister. What will be decisive is how many other MPs add their names, and how swiftly. There’s no strict equation of x signatures = rebellion. But one rule of thumb is that more than 100 is bad news for a government.

At this morning’s lobby briefing the PM’s spokesman could not say whether the reform (money will be switched to nursery places for 2-year olds) is effectively a spending cut or not. That crucial point needs to be answered**. After all, if this is an attempt to save public expenditure then there is more of a case for Brown sticking to his guns.

The policy has been an excellent boost for families across the country and 70,000 people have signed a Downing St petition protesting about its withdrawal. Understandably.

But Lord Mandelson implied this morning that the change is an attempt to make savings.

“If you are going into a period of public spending constraint, when you have to make difficult choices, you will have to target the resources you have at those most in need,” he said. “They [the signatories] can’t have it both ways. They can’t both say that we have got to maintain all our policies and all our resources for all those benefits we currently make available and, at the same time, be fiscally responsible and rebalance our public finances in the way we need to.”

Could the 70,000 signatories of the petition agree on where the Treasury should find the savings instead? I suspect not. The public finances have deteriorated to such an extent that cuts have to be made somewhere - and each of those cutbacks is going to prompt a backlash.

Gordon Brown’s attempt to shave £20m off the budget of the Territorial Army ended in an abrupt U-turn after pressure from John Reid and others. It is still not clear where the MoD will find alternative savings.

A few weeks ago, Frank Field was out campaigning about a change in housing benefit to stop tenants keeping any surplus money beyond their rental obligations. Since then there have been rumours of a policy shift on this as well.

And of course there was the 10p tax U-turn of a year ago.

Brown will not make friends by sticking to the childcare vouchers policy, which is a gradual withdrawal over several years - and does not affect current beneficiaries.

If instead he backs down, he risks giving the impression of a politician drifting towards next summer when, most likely, someone else will have to take the most difficult spending decisions for decades. Either way, it’s not an enviable position to be in.

* Patricia Hewitt, Hilary Armstrong, Beverley Hughes, Caroline Flint, David Cairns, Denis MacShane, Baroness Estelle Morris, Sally Keeble, Tom Levitt, Meg Munn

** In fact it turns out that the switch in policy is cost-neutral, despite Lord Mandelson’s suggestion. Downing Street’s argument is that the current vouchers policy overly benefits top-rate taxpayers. Plus only one in five employers offers the vouchers. The new nursery policy (free places for 2-year olds) should be more equitable, according to officials. It’s a reasonable argument. But has it been made loudly enough to the country at large?

November 11, 2009 12:13pm in Gordon Brown, Labour, Rebellion, UK politics | Comment