Gordon Brown suffered more backbench rebellions in his first full year as Prime Minister than Tony Blair in his first four-year Parliament, according to research.

The total of 103 revolts during the 2007-08 parliamentary session was the most inflicted on any governing party for more than 30 years.

It was higher than any other session during the Blair era, higher even than the 93 revolts suffered by John Major in 1992-93 when the Maastricht Bill tore the Conservative Party apart, and even bigger than the 97 revolts in 1977-78 when the late James Callaghan was struggling, and failing, to keep the Parliamentary Labour Party together.

There were revolts in 30 per cent of all divisions, the fourth-highest in all sessions since 1945, and the current Parliament is on course to be the most rebellious of the post-war era.

Every revolt, even if by only one backbencher, fosters an atmosphere of dissent in the party.

The research, carried out by Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart of the University of Nottingham, reveals that more than a quarter of all the rebellious votes came on the Bill ratifying the Lisbon treaty, and many more were on the proposal to detain terrorist suspects for 42 days.

The figures are a further reflection on Mr Brown’s difficulties during his first year and are a pointer to why he decided to shake up his whips’ office, appointing his old ally Nick Brown as Chief Whip in the October reshuffle.

The good news for Mr Brown and the whips was that most of the rebellions to take place during the session were small. Almost three quarters of the revolts consisted of fewer than ten Labour MPs.

The largest was on November 4, during a debate on the Employment Bill, when 45 Labour MPs voted against their whips on proposed rules for conducting ballots on industrial action. Every session since 1997 had included at least one rebellion of a larger size by Labour MPs against their whips.

Despite the rebellions the Government won every whipped vote, even though it sometimes appeared to face defeat. It had to negotiate its way out of trouble on several occasions, most notably on the abolition of the 10p tax rate, when a £2.7 billion package was needed to appease the rebels. Support from the Democratic Unionists helped the Government to a nine-vote victory on the 42-day plan, but it also managed to talk dozens of its own MPs out of rebelling.

A total of 104 Labour MPs voted against their whips during the session, and 107 have already voted against their whips during Mr Brown’s premiership.

The top 20 rebels accounted for 58 per cent of the rebellious votes cast. Jeremy Corbyn, the leftwinger, remains Labour’s most rebellious MP. He revolted on 57 occasions in 2007-08, compared with 31 the year before and 60 the year before that. He was followed by David Drew, John Mc-Donnell, Kelvin Hopkins, Kate Hoey, Alan Simpson, Ian Davidson, David Taylor, Lynne Jones, Austin Mitchell and Frank Field.

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