Britain: A highly charged confrontation had appeared in prospect yesterday for the first prime minister's questions of the new House of Commons. Instead a distinctly lack-lustre affair left many wondering when Tony Blair and Michael Howard might perform their last at the despatch box.
Perhaps the prime minister just needs a new leader of the official opposition to restore the spring to his step. Or maybe his vitality is inevitably and irreversibly sapped by that premature pre-election commitment not to fight another.
That certainly is a tune Tory frontbenchers are happy to sing, not least because, until they find themselves a leader, they have little else to offer.
George Osborne was at it during his debut appearance as shadow chancellor. Mr Osborne was happy to give way to a succession of Labour MPs determined to knock him off his stride as he collided with the Mighty Gordon in the continuing debate on the queen's Speech.
"Whose photograph did you have on your election literature?" he demanded of several. "Blair or Brown?"
The reckoning in advance was that Mr Osborne would have done well just to remain standing, and in fairness he did better than that. Yet he could hardly have been forgiven for hoping Mr Brown would soon move to pastures new, as he found the chancellor on flying form.
It was always a pleasure to welcome a new shadow chancellor, Mr Brown declared, reminding gleeful Labour MPs he had already seen off seven in eight years.
Mr Osborne made a decent stab at mocking the chancellor's pretensions and his prime ministerial ambitions, with a poke at the televisual imagery of Blair/Brown togetherness during the election.
"The prime minister buys you an ice-cream and it's back to square one."
But Tory MPs winced as the chancellor quoted a senior Conservative official explaining the party's future parliamentary hopefuls would have to be "normal in the broadest sense of the word."
As for their ambitions for real power, the chancellor was withering as he surveyed the opposition benches.
"There are so many people there who will be able to tell their grandchildren they used to be the next leader of the opposition."
There was the rub. Mr Blair might not exactly be the face of the future.
But Mr Howard already appears yesterday's man. This might have seemed inevitable from his announcement the morning after the election that he would stand down when the rules were agreed to elect his successor. Yet he appeared to rally as colleagues suggested he need be in no hurry.
That was all of three weeks ago. By yesterday it seemed plain that Mr Howard's first instinct was the right one, and that the proposed timetable to elect a new leader by Christmas can serve only to distract and sideline the opposition party at what could be a time of difficulty for the governing party at home and abroad.
Who, for example, will decide the Conservative policy on the government proposal, relaunched yesterday, for compulsory identity cards?
David Davis plainly intends to make civil liberties a central plank of his leadership bid. But is there another candidate of the traditional right inclined, as Mr Howard was once, to back an alleged protection against benefit fraud, illegal immigration and terrorism which Mr Blair now also passes off as necessary to the fight against identity theft?
Mr Howard ignored the issue yesterday, as he surprisingly chose also not to exploit government confusion about the next steps following any French "Non" to the European treaty.
Instead, appearing only to go through the motions, he challenged Mr Blair on school discipline and anti-social behaviour in a retread of his general election campaign.
Tory MPs meanwhile were becoming notably more vociferous in their criticisms of the proposed rule changes which would give them the final say on the new leader while increasing central command's power over errant MPs.
On current form, the Tories seem intent on making life easier than it should be for Mr Blair.