This briefly exposed at least one Westminster myth: that Hague is a hilarious genius. Actually, his jokes - including an attempt to get in on last week's bullying over Brown getting "lost" amid the pomp of the palace - fell completely flat, apart from a few unhinged cackles from Tory backbenchers ready to laugh at anything the part-time after dinner speaker says.

Also interesting was how very well Harman did. Written off when she first entered the deputy leadership race, she has grown in confidence and today shrugged off the inevitable jibes about her Peckham flak jacket by saying she wouldn't take clothing lessons from "the man in the baseball cap". When Hague began on what he thought was safe territory, trying to talk up the Tories' feministic credentials by pointing out that Margaret Thatcher had been the first woman at the PM's despatch box decades earlier, Harman asked why it was that Hague was opposing her instead of her (female) shadow Theresa May. The "genius" Hague had, and gave, no response.

Seasoned sketch-writers tell us that Hague is ever-brilliant and even should be leader again (despite his un-courageous climb-down - subsequently followed by his successors - from "modernisation" to hard-right immigration and Europe campaigning in 2001). Some of the same commentators like to echo the familiar Westminster whisper that goes round about virtually every senior woman in politics: "she's not up to it". Will they revise their opinions in tomorrow's newspapers?