It was Tony Blair's first prime minister's questions since his party was mauled in the local elections, he overhauled his cabinet and spent the last few days fending off calls for his resignation.
Blair normally takes these sessions in his stride but with virtually no support from his backbenches, and plentiful ammunition for an opposition leader who looked as if he is beginning to enjoy the format, the prime minister took a battering.
The prime minister was flanked by Gordon Brown and John Prescott. All three men remain in their pre-reshuffle posts and maybe the idea was to show continuity - but there is no doubting the shift of power with Prescott stripped of his department, Blair looking wounded and Brown pushing harder than ever for the top job.
Confusion over the reshuffle provided the Tory leader with his first opportunity to attack Blair.
David Cameron asked why the minister previously responsible for hospitals, Jane Kennedy, had resigned.
"The minister for hospitals has not resigned as far as I'm aware," was Blair's feeble response.
Cameron lost no time in underlining the sign of weakness, saying: "I know things are bad but the prime minister ought to know who is actually in the government."
The opposition leader switched tack to the foreign prisoner row. The prime minister claimed the situation was under control allowing Cameron to conflate the issue with the reshuffle: "If it's all going so well why did he sack the home secretary?"
Blair entirely ignored Cameron's question about former ministers' "queuing up" to call for his resignation and tried to focus on policy where he believes Cameron is vulnerable.
But it was a vain attempt and in the end Blair just had to take the punishment without any back up from his own benches.
Blair said he had found just two solid Cameron policies - "one on children's clothes and one on chocolate oranges" - but without some backbench laughter it fell flat.
However they did laugh at Cameron's quotation of a leaked analysis of the local election results apparently given to Blair by the "Number 10 planning committee".
"People were angry with Tony because they love him so much and they are angry because they think he might go," he told MPs before concluding that this was the "view from the bunker."
Blair tried to laugh off Cameron's attack, saying he had no intention of debating his timetable for departure with the Tory leader as he had enough people who wanted to do that on his own side.
Whilst Blair tried to shift back to policy again Cameron insisted that his departure was an issue of key public interest.
The Tory leader said the prime minister had "told us that a full term is a full term - he said that on the way to Khartoum , presumably he wanted to see where Gordon was murdered".
This even raised a smile from Prescott.
Blair fell back on his old standard comparing his electoral success and longevity with those he has faced across the despatch box. "He's not the first Conservative leader to either call for, or predict my departure, there have been four others and I'm still here and they're not," he said.
Whilst Cameron was surefooted, Sir Menzies Campbell was less so. He adopted a more serious tone and talked about trouble in departments from Defra to the Home Office.
He also managed not to consult his script every other word, a habit that makes him look less than confident.
He nearly made it to the end without reverting to type but he forgot the phrase 'Home Office' and found it in his notes just before he was engulfed by jeers from the Labour benches - the only time they made any significant noise.
Despite receiving a reassuring pat and "well done" from Susan Kramer, Sir Menzies' question was diffuse and allowed the prime minister to list the governments "achievements" in a range of areas.
The session concluded with a contribution that was even more amusing than some of Cameron's efforts as Tory backbencher John Maples congratulated the prime minister for rewarding "nine years of unremitting incompetence by the deputy prime minister" by removing his department in the reshuffle.
Maples said Blair was right to "pay the deputy prime minister for not running a department rather than running one".
Blair tried to retort by ridiculing the last Tory deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine but he fluffed his lines saying he had presided over the "worst Conservative election victory on record," before nearly forgetting the pay-off: "I prefer Prezza to Hezza."
In all it was a fitting end to another day Blair will be eager to forget.
The Verdict
Tony Blair - 5/10 - A stark reminder that without party support even a consummate politician like Blair can look alone and vulnerable.
David Cameron - 8/10 - Made a good job of kicking a man when he's down.
Sir Menzies Campbell - 4/10 - Statesmanlike compared to Punch 'n' Judy but let Blair off the hook.
