Pictured: Home Secretary's secret weapon to fight 42-day detention battle - a lucky mascot teddy kept in her car

Someone anonymous is best - your partner, a close friend or one of the children, perhaps.

For Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who is battling to help Gordon Brown avoid a humiliating Commons defeat, it appears to be an unnamed teddy bear.

The cuddly creature was spotted on Tuesday poking out of a map pocket in her Government limo.

A friend in need? Jacqui Smith turns up at Downing Street with a teddy bear

Aides revealed that it has kept her company since she was given it by an exhibitor at the Women in Policing conference in February.

'She popped it in the car and it has been there ever since,' one said.

It has already been dubbed the Terror Teddy, although Miss Smith's advisers said it had no name.

But locked up for more than three months, the bear may have some sympathy with those opposed to an extension of pre-charge detention to six weeks.

The rather cute looking toy's existence emerged for the first time yesterday when Miss Smith stepped out of her car in Downing Street ahead of a Cabinet meeting.

Aides, however, were at pains to insist that it was not some sort of mascot and did not even have a name. 'At some point when the car gets tidied up it will be cleared out,' an adviser told the Mail.

Whether Miss Smith is, like her furry friend, consigned to the dustbin if the Government loses on the vote on Wednesday night remains to be seen.

Briefing: The Home Secretary emerges from the car - but leaves Ted behind