REBEL Labour MPs were powerless to stop Tony Blair handing over schools and parts of the NHS to private firms - and they failed again yesterday over the probation service.

Proposals to allow private companies to take over the supervision of dangerous criminals let out of prison on probation had threatened to be a privatisation wheeze too far.

Last night, 49 Labour MPs - including five from the North-East - backed a rebel amendment to the Offender Management Bill, opposing opening the door to the likes of Group 4.

Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Frank Cook (Stockton North), Jim Cousins (Newcastle Central), Chris Mullin (Sunderland South) and Denis Murphy (Wansbeck) defied a three-line whip.

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) had threatened to join the revolt, but Home Secretary John Reid made concessions, agreeing to phase in the changes with no "big bang solution".

Most importantly, the Conservatives decided, late on, not to join forces with the rebels, which meant the Prime Minister escaped a bloody nose.

I think we will regret that, because nothing epitomises Mr Blair's obsession with privatisation better than the proposal to let market forces rip in the probation service.

The Government argues that creating competition will drive up standards in a service rocked by repeated scandals over the failure to supervise society's most dangerous. But all the evidence suggests those failures flow from a lack of money and a shortage of 1,000 probation officers - not from a failure of management.

Claims by Napo, the trade union for probation officers, that private firms would jeopardise public safety by cutting costs were dismissed as the inevitable bleatings of stuck-in-the-past unions. But judges are also opposed, warning that private probation officers - seeking more business for their firms - will be tempted to lobby for harsher punishments.

Probation officers add that private companies are instinctively secretive, when the public and the police want to know as much as they can about let-loose criminals. And it is argued that attempts to create a proper market are doomed to failure because, just as in the NHS, private firms must be guaranteed juicy contracts to get them interested.

Even arch-Thatcherite Lord Tebbit has protested that part-privatising "the administration of justice and prevention of crime" is a step too far. Yes, that's what Mr Blair is up to now - taking the Thatcher revolution where Margaret feared to tread.

EVEN as the Prime Minister runs out of fans at home, has he found one in the guise of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Many will remember Mr Blair's conference pledge that he had "no reverse gear". Now Iran - in defending its nuclear programme - has insisted it has "no brake and no reverse gear". Expect Mr Ahmadinejad to tell the United Nations he is "a pretty straight kind of guy" any day now.

I POPPED down to Members' Lobby for my first peak at the statue of Margaret Thatcher, which a few outraged Labour MPs are now trying to remove.

The aggressive pose - finger outstretched as the former Prime Minister makes her debating point - seems to shout 'You will live life on the dole!'

I also couldn't help but notice that, to the left of Thatcher, the small bust of her long-time enemy Edward Heath is turning green - presumably with envy.