Harman disarmed the critics hoping that she would fall flat on her face. I chalked her up as going into a 2-0 lead before she eventually ran of steam. But she got at least a draw and possibly - because she defied expectations - a narrow win.

When Hague welcomed her as the first Labour politician to appear at Prime Minister's Questions, three decades after Margaret Thatcher, Harman replied that she should have been up against Theresa May, her Tory shadow, rather than Hague. Was this the modern Conservative Party, she asked - that women should be seen and not heard? Then when Hague inevitably brought up that stab vest, Harman retorted that he would be the last person from whom she took advice on what to wear as "the man in the baseball cap" (when he was Tory leader).

Hague's one-liners were quite good and he got better as their exchanges continued. Harman lived up to her critics' caricature, provoking guffaws when she talked about going on a "Harriet in the High Street" walkabout in Edinburgh. But Hague suffered from the curse of being the favourite in what the pundits predicted would be a one-sided contest. Wrongly. After this, Straw will be kept waiting in the wings.