Fleet Street commentators react to Tony Blair's narrow victory on top up fees.

Writing in the FT, Phillip Stephens says that Gordon Brown's intervention was crucial in securing a win for the government. He writes: "The excruciating narrowness of Mr Blair's majority poses a more dangerous question for this and future Labour governments. During the 1990s the party seemed to come to terms with the awkward choices of government. Has it now decided that enough is enough; that it prefers to safeguard its ideals in opposition than adapt to the realities of power?"

Polly Toynbee's column in the Guardian says that the prime minister has been "badly damaged". She says: "Five votes? This was no victory: the prime minister is holed below the waterline and listing. This was his third and deadliest rebellion in a year - all of his own making. What next? This raises serious questions about whether Labour is losing its appetite for power if so many MPs were willing to hand the Tories a triumph."

Writing in the Times, Simon Jenkins says that "yesterday was Black Tuesday for Britain's universities". He adds: "In 1988 they [the universities] agreed to surrender their autonomy in favour of more students and, supposedly, more money. They got the students but not the money. They sold their souls to sup with the government Devil. Now they are covered in his vomit."

"Last night was a time of shame", according to Paul Routledge in the Mirror. He says: "I am ashamed to be part of the Labour movement that gives rise to the corrupt, lying government hit-operation that will make students paupers for generations to come."

Former health secretary Frank Dobson writing in the Independent described the vote as "another Houdini-like escape for Tony Blair". "The big question now is whether Blair will conclude that this time things got too close for comfort," he writes. He calls on the government not to spring any more divisive issues on the party.

Benedict Brogan's column in the Telegraph says that "the moment Nick Brown abandoned his principles yesterday and announced he would vote with Tony Blair on top-up fees will be remembered as the decisive event in what Labour MPs are now convinced was a clumsy but successful attempt by Gordon Brown to embarrass Tony Blair".