Gordon Brown expected a mauling. Only two hours earlier, Hazel Blears had told him in his study in Number 10 that she was quitting the government – now he was facing the Commons, packed with shell-shocked Labour MPs and Tories baying for his blood.

But Mr Brown survived. While his allies briefed furiously against Ms Blears in private, the prime minister deployed gallant praise towards her in the House. His unusually feisty attacks on the Tories rallied the nervous MPs behind him.