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“Shame! Shame!” cried the Tories and Lib Dems, turning and pointing their fingers as one at the nine Unionist MPs, as the vote was announced last night. “Traitors! Traitors!”

Labour MPs, victorious but only because of the DUP votes, looked stunned. The Rev Ian Paisley’s granite face didn’t move.

“You’ve been bought!” cried one furious voice.

This was genuine anger, lynch-mob intense, a cacophonous finale to a day of high politics, high drama, high stakes and high jinks at Westminster. Moments before the vote, in the corridors, MPs were visibly nervous as they did their calculations, many of which were actually done on the backs of envelopes.

Gordon Brown had won but he didn’t look that happy. But then who can tell with him? The Prime Minister had certainly played this to win. In the morning, he and his entourage had staged a high-profile walk through Portcullis House. This was his version of a flypast, a Red Arrows signal that this was the real deal.

In the chamber, he was on thundering form. “It is no use – opposition for opposition’s sake!” he boomed at the Tories. Anger flashed like lightning around David Cameron. “This party needs no reminders of the importance of fighting terrorism,” he snapped, talking of his memories of Ian Gow and Airey Neave, both murdered by the IRA. “But we aren’t going to fight terrorism effectively if we undermine our liberties!”

But there were two Westminster worlds yesterday – in and out of the chamber. Inside, the warring needs of liberty and security fought an all-day duel. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was spectacularly vague but smouldered with purpose. Her Tory shadow, David Davis, known as DD of the SAS for his macho ways, was on top form, rallying to his own Magna Carta moment.

But it was outside, in the corridors and corners of the Commons, that the real work was done. All day, deals were mooted, consciences tweaked, elbows jostled. The 18 Labour whips were as busy as ants at a picnic. The gossip was incredible. Rumours screeched round like racing cars. Forget cash for peerages. This was gossip for peerages. And if not a P then why not a K?

One Tory teased Keith Vaz, saying there was a “churlish and ridiculous rumour” that he may have been offered a knighthood.

Mr Vaz’s eyes lit up, for he yearns for honours as a child does sweets. “No, it was certainly not offered,” he twinkled, “but I do not know, there is still time!” Cash for miners. Cash for Cuba. Cash for arthritis. Oink, oink, for this was pork-barrel politics at its piggiest. The biggest and best rumours were to do with Democratic Unionist Party. The Government needed their votes and the going rate was said to be £25 million each (something to do with water rates, apparently). Was it true? No one knew but that didn’t stop everyone talking.

The Naughty Nine spent all day teasing. They popped into the chamber and then popped out. Had a deal been done? Everyone kept saying that a meeting was taking place “as we speak”. I first heard this at noon and at regular intervals until the vote at 6pm. Mr Paisley, the Great Galapagos tortoise, was adoring the attention. How would he vote? He wouldn’t say, though at one point in the corridor he shouted: “In patience you shall possess your soul!” (Luke xxi, 19, in case you wondered).

How very high-minded. Not that anyone believes it was.

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