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It was perhaps fitting, given some of the comic scenes in the Commons, that MPs were debating Lords amendments to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill on the day the Royal Mail unveiled stamps immortalising the TV classic Dad's Army.

No doubt the always laid back Brexit Secretary David Davis was heard using Corporal Jones' favourite catchphrase "Don't panic!", while the Tory Chief Whip Julian Smith was echoing Private Frazer's gloomy prediction "We're Doomed!"

But at the end of a three-hour debate, after the government comfortably won the crucial vote on a so-called "more meaningful vote" on the Brexit negotiations, for a mightily relieved Theresa May the outcome was more Great Escape than Dad's Army.

:: Dad's Army 50th celebrated with stamps

In a vote that went 324-298 in Mrs May's favour, the pro-Remain Tory rebels raised the white flag and ran for the hills just like Captain Mainwaring's Home Guard troops when confronted by the advancing enemy in the fictional TV series.

Only diehard Brexit opponents Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry voted against the government, while five pro-Brexit Labour MPs Ronnie Campbell, Frank Field, Kate Hoey, John Mann and Graham Stringer voted with the Government.

But the Prime Minister's great escape came at a price: a significant concession.

Pro-Remain Conservative MPs claim the government has been forced to concede a vote for Parliament on the final Brexit deal.

Some Brexiteeers, on the other hand, say they haven't and that "no deal" remains a possible outcome.

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Some Brexiteers will no doubt be privately seething and claim ministers have made concessions to the Remainers as a reward for their treachery and disloyalty.

The crucial twist in the plot in the Commons drama came just after 3pm, a little more than an hour before MPs started voting, when the Solicitor General Robert Buckland rose to his feet on the government front bench.

Bespectacled Mr Buckland is short and squat in stature, rather like Arthur Lowe's Captain Mainwaring, but he is wily and shrewd and has been the Government's star performer during the Withdrawal bill's long passage through the Commons.

Where David Davis is all bluster and no detail, Mr Buckland is the opposite. And his lawyerly exchanges with the former attorney general Dominic Grieve in recent weeks have been sharp, precise and worthy of the Old Bailey or Court of Appeal.

And so it was Mr Buckland and not Mr Davis who got the government out of trouble when it appeared to be heading for defeat on the crucial Lords amendment demanding parliamentary approval of the Brexit deal, the "more meaningful vote".

As Mr Grieve, an officer-class type with the effortless politeness of TV's Sergeant Wilson, prepared to lead a dozen or so pro-Remain Tory MPs - enough, potentially, to defeat the Government - in rebellion, Mr Buckland had an offer.

The solicitor general's message was essentially: "Why don't we meet for a chat tomorrow and sort all this out?"

What he actually said was: "The government is willing to engage positively ahead of the Lords stages."

"Engage positively" before the Bill goes back to the House of Lords? What does that mean?

To many MPs it sounded like an offer from Dad's Army's spiv Private Walker to sell some dodgy nylons or cigarettes that had fallen off the back of a lorry.

In crude politics, it meant the Government made a desperate concession to its pro-Remain MPs at the 11th hour to avoid a disastrous government defeat and buy some time.

But what ministers are promising the Tory rebels is that demands made by Mr Grieve in an amendment that wasn't voted on will be included in a Government amendment when the Withdrawal Bill goes back to the House of Lords.

Responding to the offer, the haughty Mr Grieve rose and said it must be made "in good faith", to which a rather hurt sounding Mr Buckland replied that he always did everything in good faith.

What followed were a series of comic scenes worthy of Dad's Army.

Mr Grieve was seen chatting to Mr Davis first and then to the chief whip, who was shuttling about between Tory backbenchers during the debate.

Then Mr Grieve and a few of his allies left the chamber.

It looked like a grubby - or at least face-saving - deal was being done. In fact, they were being summoned to the prime minister's giant Commons office.

MPs claimed there were "semi-comic scenes" there too, when 13 pro-Remain Tory MPs shuffled in.

It's claimed that with time running out before voting began each MP wanted to make a five-minute speech.

But by the end of the talks with the PM, the rebels were promised that the Grieve amendments - including a potential veto on a Brexit deal if there is no agreement with Brussels by 15 February next year, just five or six weeks before the UK is due to leave the EU - will be sent to the Lords.

And at the end of this long day of plot twists, slapstick scenes and comic capers, who was cast in the role of Private Pike in this Brexit drama? (No, not the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who already has that nickname among MPs.)

It has to be Dr Phillip Lee, a junior minister who resigned from his government job earlier in the day and then found himself abstaining in an almost solitary protest, while nearly all the other pro-Remain Tory backbenchers - including Mr Grieve - voted with the government.

Was it worth the personal sacrifice? The principled Mr Lee said so. He talked about "looking his children in the eye". But now his local party in Bracknell is muttering darkly about de-selecting him.

Ominously for him, it's worth remembering that he was selected in an open primary - just like his fellow GP-turned-MP Sarah Wollaston in Totnes - and not by the local Conservative association.

And while the relieved prime minister will celebrate her Great Escape in the short term, it's also worth remembering that in the epic movie starring Steve McQueen only three of the dozens of prisoners of war who plotted their escape were successful.