Gordon Brown accused Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg of trying to transport the Commons back to the 1970s this week, with his call for a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union.
And Westminster has felt like it is stuck in something of a timewarp in recent weeks, as the same arguments over the Lisbon treaty have bounced around the chamber.
With the debate coming to a head in a vote on Wednesday evening, there was no escaping the subject at prime minister's questions.
The first question went to Labour's Fabian Hamilton, asking about the minimum wage which allowed Brown to announce it would rise to £5.73 this October.
The prime minister often likes to pull a rabbit from a hat thanks to friendly question early on in the session, but this news did not seem to have much of an impact on the House.
Conservative leader David Cameron, who chose to split his six questions into two sets, began by asking the prime minister if he thought he could win a referendum on the EU treaty.
Brown launched into his stock answer to explain why the treaty is different to the constitution which preceded it - an answer which has been pressed into service by ministers so often in recent months it will be looking forward to a well-deserved retirement.
Cameron said that "everyone watching" would see that the prime minister could not answer a straight question.
He has said this or something very like it at prime minister's questions a few times in recent months, and seems to be trying to rise above the parliamentary knockabout and make a direct appeal to those watching at home.
He said "we have the courage of our convictions, he has lost his courage and that lot [the Lib Dems] have lost their convictions", reflecting the view among Tory and Labour MPs that no matter how tangled their own positions on the EU treaty, it is nothing to the pickle the Lib Dems find themselves in.
Brown quoted, to no-one's surprise, pro-European Tory Kenneth Clarke, who disagrees with his frontbench on the treaty, and Cameron completed the routine by quoting Labour rebel Gisela Stuart back at him.
Cameron wants to make the treaty a matter of trust - Labour, like the other parties, promised a referendum on the constitution in its 2005 manifesto and is said to be betraying the electorate by refusing to hold one.
Labour is focusing on the Conservative weak spot, the tricky issue of whether they will still promise a referendum on the treaty once it has been ratified.
Brown wanted to turn the clock back a little himself, by bringing back memories of the divisions over Europe that have been so destructive for the Tories in the past.
"If his party had really changed and moved to the centre, he'd be standing up to his backbenchers, he'd be leading them instead of following them", he said, with an echo of Tony Blair's devastating 1995 quip to Major: "I lead my party, he follows his".
"He'd be standing up to the eurosceptics instead of appeasing them," he went on. The Conservative frontbench have done a pretty good job of not appearing to pander to the anti-EU rump on their benches, although Ann Winteron's question about "our masters in Brussels" sounded like a war cry from the Tory shires.
Labour and Conservative MPs are united in few things, but Liberal Democrat bashing is one of them.
Nick Clegg's party may have a policy on the treaty so difficult to defend he is losing members of his frontbench over it, but he made the best of a bad fist with a passionate call for politicians who believe in the EU to stand up for it.
Labour's Shona McIsaac, fresh from her spirited call for an autumn bank holiday in a 10 minute rule bill on Tuesday, joined in by asking the prime minister to tell pensioners in Grimsby and Cleethorpes who had been refused free bus travel that the Lib Dems were "stealing their bus passes".
The people of Lincolnshire like to elect MPs with a bit of character, if McIsaac and Grimsby MP Austin Mitchell are anything to judge by.
May's London mayoral elections are looming large, and Cameron used his second set of questions to ask about Ken Livingstone and aide Lee Jasper, who this week quit his post.
Brown deflected the question by saying it was a matter under police investigation, but said that if the Tories wanted to help the police do their job, why was Conservative candidate Boris Johnson "saying that the first target for cuts is transport and policing?"
This would indeed make for a strange election manifesto, and Johnson spent the rest of the session bouncing to his feet in the hope of being called by the Speaker.
The last time this happened he used a point of order to deliver most of his stump speech, but this week seems to have decided discretion is the better part of valour.
The Verdict
Gordon Brown - 7/10 - Still sticks to the prepared answers, but looks increasingly confident at the despatch box.
David Cameron - 6/10 - Questions are inventive, but no longer seems to find it easy to knock the PM off his feet.
Nick Clegg - 5/10 - Spirited call to stand up for the EU, in spite of his party's sticky situation on the treaty.
