Mr Woolas is unlikely to be remembered as the Gurkhas' most fearsome enemy, nor their most cunning. But the metaphorical khukri bludgeoning that he was dealt on April 29th, when MPs of all parties voted for a motion condemning the Home Office's treatment of Gurkha veterans, will go down in the history of the brigade. As the first big parliamentary defeat of Gordon Brown's limping government, it may also one day feature in the history of the Labour Party.

The Gurkha saga has been going on for years, with pay, pensions and immigration rights the main battlefields. The grievance now at stake is that Gurkhas who retired before July 1997 are not granted an automatic right to settle in Britain, on the grounds that they were based in Hong Kong until 1997 and were therefore unlikely to have strong British ties. Newer Gurkha recruits, who are based in Britain, and Commonwealth recruits (who make up more than 6 per cent of all soldiers) may settle after just four years of service. In September Britain's High Court ruled that the discrimination against older Gurkhas was unlawful.

When Mr Woolas eventually came up with new proposals on April 24th, they were widely attacked. Veterans would be allowed to settle only if they met one or more conditions based on length of service, gallantry or related illness. Many of the requirements seemed designed to frustrate: for example, one way to qualify automatically was by soldiering for at least 20 years, though most rank-and-file Gurkhas serve for only 15. Another was to prove that a long-term medical condition was caused or worsened by active service — a tall order for those whose injuries were sustained decades ago.

These catch-22s were angrily outlined by Joanna Lumley, a popular actress whose father served with the Gurkhas: she felt, she said, "ashamed of our administration". Members of the all-party parliamentary home-affairs committee described the plan as "unnecessarily restrictive, morally wrong and offensive". The climactic vote against the government, following a debate tabled by the Liberal Democrats, was won by 267 votes to 246. Rebel Labour MPs — 27 of them — swung it.

It is a feather in the cap of Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' leader, who has struggled to define his party against the newly rampant Tories. And it is another self-inflicted wound for Mr Brown's government, which seems increasingly unable to read the public mood. A vote on his panicked proposals to clean up MPs' expenses, scheduled for April 30th, seemed likely, as The Economist went to press, to test his authority still more.

© The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009