Sketch By Nick Assinder Political Correspondent, BBC News website

After that performance, no one could accuse Tony Blair of not being up for a general election fight.

Blair was in Ozzy mode

Indeed, if he doesn't call the poll quickly he may be in danger of peaking too early.

Michael Howard, on the other hand, must have felt like the jewel thief who broke into Ozzy Osbourne's home.

Just as he completed a pretty effective assault on Labour's programme and past record, he found himself in a head lock being roundly abused.

The prime minister may not have been as foul-mouthed as the self-styled prince of darkness, but he was just as effective.

Core messages

He even had the best joke of the occasion, which traditionally kicks off with a brace of backbenchers delivering what are supposed to be witty speeches.

They didn't - but he did, reminding Knowsley North's George Howarth of the occasion he had been accused by a political sketch writer of looking like a serial killer.

Mr Howarth, said the prime minister, had written to the hack declaring: "Appearances are not always deceptive".

No polite words in Queen's speech debate

But it was the prime minister who was in mutilation mode, gleefully chopping the legs off just about anyone who dared challenge him.

Mr Howard rehearsed what are now certain to be the core messages of his general election campaign.

That boils down to "all talk and no delivery".

"This government will never turn talk into action, it is time for a government that will," he said.

Score draw

The campaigning theme was taken up by the prime minister who returned to his favourite topic of the past Tory government's record.

"He is not the hope of a Tory future because he is the reincarnation of a failed Tory past," he declared.

The debate was probably running as a score draw until Mr Howard took the unusual and dangerous step of intervening to ask Mr Blair a question while he was in mid-rant.

There followed what Mr Kennedy described as an interesting philosophical debate - the kiss of death to Commons exchanges, needless to say.

The prime minister was repeating his well-worn attack that the Tories planned to re-negotiate European treaties which would prove disastrous for the country.

Mr Howard leapt to his feet demanding to know how the prime minister, therefore, explained the success Margaret Thatcher had in renegotiating Britain's cash rebate from the EU all those years ago.

The prime minister' could hardly contain himself - Mr O. Osbourne would by now have bitten the head off a bat, spat it at Mr Howard, and told him to F off.

Mr Blair did the Commons equivalent - shouting at the opposition leader: "She did not get it through renegotiation, they had not agreed the budget!"

Lower key

It might not sound like much, but it was a pretty effective bullseye which pinned Mr Howard back in his seat.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy got better treatment after he delivered a lower key appraisal of the government programme.

At one point he accused Labour of turning the word liberal (lower case l) into a dirty word - and it was Mr Blair's turn to get to his feet to disagree.

There followed what Mr Kennedy described as an interesting philosophical debate - the kiss of death to Commons exchanges, needless to say.

The whole thing was probably as good a rehearsal of the general election themes as we will get outside the official campaign.

But riveting Commons theatre it was not.