By Nyta Mann BBC News Online political correspondent

Lord Douglas Home and John Major hated it. Harold Wilson turned it into a parliamentary blood sport. Margaret Thatcher relished it.

But Tony Blair's attitude to prime minister's questions was plain from the start when in 1997 he unilaterally moved to cut the twice-weekly gauntlet to a single session.

Harold Macmillan presided over the first PMQs

Moving the joust back from its current 3pm slot to noon, as now suggested by the Commons modernisation select committee, pulls to an earlier point of the day the central element in the rhythm of the House of Commons.

It will also probably make the session a less heated affair - which will almost certainly mean less entertaining.

The current slot gives a long build-up from the morning's awkward story to the mid-afternoon head-to-head clash between prime minister and shadow.

There might be less baying, jeering and waving of order papers if it was held before MPs enjoyed what one member of the government euphemistically describes as "a good lunch".

Intoxicating atmosphere

According to this theory, the audience gathered in the chamber consists of a fair number of MPs intoxicated by more than just the heady Commons atmpsohere.

Perhaps Mr Cook's proposal for an earlier start to the Blair vs Duncan Smith fixtures was influenced by football chiefs' decisions to switch big matches such as Liverpool vs Manchester United to noon kick-offs in the hope of avoiding drink-fuelled argy-bargy.

The political equivalent of that is what Mr Blair and Mr Major before him denounced as undignified, and "immature" "yah boo" politics - otherwise known in the PMQs context as scoring points off the prime minister.

Harold Wilson turned it into a political dust-up

It should also be noted that noble declarations of how sincerely they wished to get away from it never stopped either man from stooping to the yah boo level when it suited them.

He hasn't said as much but Mr Blair will almost certainly have come to intensely dislike his despatch box confrontations with departed opposition leader William Hague.

The prime minister was persistently miles ahead in the polls compared to Mr Hague and enjoyed a far more respectful press than did the balding Yorkshireman who at no point as Tory leader presented too worrying a political threat to him.

But while Mr Hague failed in the country to make much impression at all on Labour's command, in the Commons during crossfire exchanges he often succeeded in making Mr Blair look a fool.

Macmillan holds first PMQs

Though a modernised, worthier PMQs will be less fun and the prime minister's life a little easier, those who protest - there are always some - that to change its format is to tamper with a sacred part of the constitution are mistaken.

It is only 40 years old, which makes it a callow youth compared to many MPs.

Prime minister's questions started as a regular parliamentary fixture in 1961 under Harold Macmillan. Rather civilised - gentlemanly, even - it was too, as he faced Hugh Gaitskell as leader of the opposition across the despatch box.

William Hague regularly irritated Tony Blair by making him look foolish at PMQs

It was once Harold Wilson had replaced Gaitskell and Lord Home succeeded Macmillan that the bear-garden atmosphere was born.

Wilson had been respectful and wary of Macmillan, winking ahead of launching some vicious assault, in order to show it was just business and not personal.

Former earl Lord Home, however, was inexperienced with the Commons and unflamboyant in manner and debate. Wilson, a hungry opposition leader, made minced meat of him for 12 months.

Once installed in Downing Street, he treated Edward Heath in much the same way from 1965-70.

Gladiatorial Thatcher

Of recent prime ministers, only Mrs Thatcher can be said to have been a fan. Never one to be shy of getting stuck into any political dust-up going, she thrived on the aggressive atmosphere, dominating her bouts with Neil Kinnock like a heavyweight let loose on a flyweight.

When Mr Blair takes his weekly dose of Commons pummelling at noon on Wednesdays, old Commons hands will doubtless say that it's not as good as it was in the old days.

The truth is more along the lines that not only is nothing is ever as good as they think it was, but it also takes two willing combatants - even if mismatched - to have a good punch-up.