Another week, another Tory policy U-turn.
This week David Cameron decided to harden his party's stance against ID cards with a performance that appeared to bear little resemblance to his predecessor Michael Howard's position of opposition to the practicalities rather than principle of the idea.
"How can the prime minister claim spending £600m a year on his identity cards is a good use of public money?" he asked, pointing to a tightening fiscal situation and other priorities.
"Almost every government IT project has massively overrun," he later added, also claiming they would be "a monument to the failure of big government".
Clearly there is to be no cross-party consensus here.
That was a point the prime minister was quick to pick up on. If his concern is the speed of the project Cameron can "work with us to make sure they are introduced more quickly" Tony Blair told him. Touche.
In a further echo of Cameronian language, Blair said the policy "may be the future not the past". Slowly, he appears to be getting the measure of of the Tory chief, although he still looks slightly unnerved and unsure how to handle him and can be overly patronising.
For his part Cameron looks fairly content not to over-egg the pudding, believing, probably rightly, that it will reflect well on him.
He is also far from embarrassed about dropping commitments by the minute. It is part of his strategy to show the public how his party has changed.
Cameron is less civil towards the chancellor, however, who he claimed was not in favour of ID cards and would drop them when inside Number 10.
The contradiction in his claim was that Gordon Brown is supposed to be the big fan of big government.
Blair was having none of it anyway. "The government as a whole is absolutely behind identity cards," he argued, with Brown having provided the initial funding for them.
After the SNP's Alex Salmond got a bit of gratuitous nat bashing for his bid to return to the Scottish parliament, it was the turn of Sir Menzies Campbell to try to make amends for his disastrous display of a week ago.
He made a good fist of it too, silencing the inevitable jeers by immediately raising the issue of the Soham murders.
He also got a little help from the speaker, who told MPs that while they had "had some fun last week", the acting Liberal Democrat leader would be heard.
His clever questions probably went through several extra vetting procedures and Sir Menzies stuck to his script.
How many of Sir Michael Bichard's 31 recommendations on the lessons to be learned from Soham had been implemented, he asked.
Concise, topical and as he certainly knew, unanswerable on the spot. For his follow up he questioned why the relevant computer system was three years behind schedule and when it would be introduced.
Again Blair, as he acknowledged, could not provide a specific answer "off the cuff". Equally the prime minister could not use this of all subjects to taunt the Lib Dems.
Cameron came back for a go on climate change targets. Having switched his own electricity supplier yesterday he asked why government departments could not be more ambitious in increasing their own share of power from renewable sources.
But the prime minister said the Tories were in no position to lecture when they still opposed the climate change levy charge on business. But the best insult he could come up with was that Cameron's policy was a "trifle dodgy". Not the most cutting parliamentary jibe but perhaps within the spirit of the new consensus.
The briefer than usual exchanges left plenty of time for backbench contributions, but most of these are now little more than party political broadcasts for the local elections.
The most fun came when the speaker appeared to catch Dennis Skinner by surprise by calling him. "Wakey, wakey" the Tories cried. But if Cameron continues to take the sting out of PMQs, the beast of Bolsover may not be the only one struggling to stay alert.
The verdict
Blair 7/10 - Picked the holes in Tory policy but still struggling to find the right balance of consensus and attack
Cameron 7/10 - Will be content to keep coasting along until his real opponent arrives
Sir Menzies 8/10 - It couldn't have got worse but it did get better
