IT WAS the culmination of an epic confrontation that has been brewing for months.

On one side stood a political leader determined to push back against what he views as a creeping intervention into his authority.

One the other, a quite different figurehead determined not to concede any ground. When it came, however, the act of defiance did not sound that dramatic.

As the Speaker of the Commons John Bercow intervened with his mantra "order, order", David Cameron muttered: "I hadn't finished..."

But the effect was electric. The Tory backbenches roared with approval.

In a week in which dozens of them had rebelled against their party leadership over the controversial HS2 rail link, the Prime Minister had proved one political truism.

However much some Tory backbenchers hate David Cameron - they dislike the Speaker more.

Mr Bercow, for his part, struggled to regain control.

He told Mr Cameron: "The Prime Minister has finished.

"And he can take it from me that he has finished!"

But the Conservative leader's smile suggested that, like a teacher struggling with his unruly pupil, they both know who had won.

Only a political cynic would suggest that Mr Cameron later seized an opportunity from a Tory MP - asking him to pay tribute on the anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth - to rub it in. Of all the great works the Prime Minster singled out the speech from Henry V, in what appeared to be a message to those behind him "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more".

"I would say to any politician that if they read Henry V's speech before Agincourt - and it does not inspire them and drive them on, I cannot think what will," the Tory leader said.

The Conservative backbenches roared again. But if they thought that was the end of the matter, they had perhaps underestimated their opponent.

And I don't mean Labour.

But only a cynic would suggest the Speaker in return managed to get his own back by announcing "injury time" in the event, which is more tightly timetabled than a football World Cup final.

And so it was that after 37 minutes the half-an-hour long session of Prime Minister's Questions finally ended.