Analysis on Theresa May 'winning' confidence vote last night.

There are 317 MPs in Theresa May's Conservative party in the UK Parliament, all of whom voted.

163 of these MPs are either government ministers, junior ministers or parliamentary private secretaries i.e. they are on the government 'payroll'. Theoretically you can only be on this 'payroll' (constitutionally) if you support the prime minister. (If an MP doesn't support the prime minister then convention has it that they resign from their position).

It could therefore be assumed that Theresa May was expecting at least 163 votes - she actually got 200.

That leaves 154 MPs that are not on the 'payroll' and they are called back bench MPs.

Assuming ALL of those MPs that were expected to vote for the prime minister did actually vote for her (big assumption imho), she also picked up 37 'extra' votes of support from these 154 back bench MPs. This equates to approx 24% support from MPs not in her government (i.e. 76% of her back bench MPs did not support her.)

So while on paper 200 voted for May and 117 voted against May, giving a majority of 83 MPs, it is actually a lot more damaging for her that she failed to secure significantly more support from her back bench MPs.

In her final appeal to MPs, before the vote, it was widely reported she would not be standing in the next General Election. Her authority has been seriously wounded by this confidence vote.

(In similar no confidence votes in Conservative party history, Margaret Thatcher was in a slightly stronger position but resigned within a few days after initially saying she would fight on. John Major did fight on, but his party was so seriously weakened by his lack of a resounding win in his confidence vote that it was widely considered a lame duck premiership.)

May's government party does not command a majority in parliament. They rely on the votes of 10 MPs from the Northern Ireland DUP party, who are fundamentally against her Brexit withdrawal plan. Her government lost 3 major votes in parliament last week, including (for the first time ever for any government) being found in contempt of parliament. Opposition parties smell blood and may well call a vote of no confidence in the government in the coming days. It doesn't take too many of May's MPs to back this for her government to fall.

I think Theresa May is far from being out of the woods yet.