The Sketch: Blair was up for any battle - just don't mention the wife

In the end, Cheriegate in the Commons turned out to be an anti-climax. We knew there might be the potential for trouble during Prime Minister's questions because the Labour minders had ensured Tony Blair was flanked not, as is normally the case, by Gordon Brown and John Prescott, but instead by Clare Short and Margaret Beckett.

These Labour women shielded Mr Blair, protectively, as he awaited his ordeal in the Commons chamber. Iain Duncan Smith also decided that women, Theresa May and Caroline Spelman, should accompany him in his attempt to embarrass the Prime Minister. Frankly, however, no one can embarrass a politician more than his wife and family.

The pantomime started with a massive Labour roar, presumably tightly orchestrated by a nervous government whips' office before Labour's David Kidney asked the expected initial question about Mr Blair's official engagements.

Mr Kidney – usually a toady – then asked, for once, a real question that was decidedly off message. "Will the Prime Minister confirm that this very evident good intention by the Government to support the health service will not be undermined by the Government's plans for foundation hospitals?"

Mr Blair normally gets into a bit of a lather when he faces hostile questions from his own side but yesterday his sole objective was to play for time. He would have gladly put up with any hostile question on mainstream issues – "just don't mention the wife".

But the focus was as much on Mr Duncan Smith as on the Prime Minister. Would the opposition leader funk the Cherie questions altogether and claim the moral high ground? In the end, he went for the mud-slinging but his heart did not really seem to be in it. Although he asked whether Mr Blair was concerned at the "loss of integrity which surrounds the No 10 press office and information provided by government and how does he intend to restore it?", the opposition leader must be the only one who believes that it ever had any integrity to lose.

Mr Blair stonewalled, as any sensible Prime Minister caught in the middle of a press feeding frenzy should do.

He said nothing and said it briefly. Mr Duncan Smith ploughed on about deportation dates, ministerial codes and independent inquiries. It was an adequate performance but it was a blunderbuss attack rather than a rapier.

The Prime Minister, as always, had the last word and made it count. "It is absolutely typical of him that he dives into the swimming pool just as the water is running out."

And that just about sums up this whole thing. Cherie has emoted. The press has made her cry. It might also even have drawn some blood from Mr Blair and his Government but I'm bored and starting to feel sorry for his wife – so, I suspect, are the punters.