With Labour in disarray and the Liberal Democrat ball and chain discarded, David Cameron looked like a man rejuvenated, declaring that the Queen's Speech was a "golden opportunity" to renew Britain.

The first Tory majority government since the mid-1990s put forward a raft of ambitious Bills from promising an in/out referendum, clamping down on benefit tourism, countering extremism, introducing a new welfare cap and giving Holyrood more powers.

One of the starker measures was on trade unions; not only restricting strike action but fiddling with subscription rules to cut funding to Labour. A double whammy.

But just to underline that, while buoyant now, there could be trouble ahead for the Tory Government, the Prime Minister had to push back his plan to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

The legal minefield that such a change would produce - the Act is written into the devolved legislation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - means that Mr Cameron has kicked it into the long grass. The fact is, with opposition from his own benches to the change, he has to play canny given his majority is just 12.

This will become painfully apparent further down the line when the PM returns from his umpteenth European tour and presents his party with how much or how little reform he has squeezed out of his 27 EU counterparts.

In the short term while Labour gets its act together, the parliamentary thorn in the Tory leader's side will be the SNP.

With his enhanced battalion behind him, Angus Robertson set out his anti-austerity agenda, making clear the Nationalists would provide a "constructive but tough opposition".

Within minutes, it materialised as Alex Salmond, the ex-FM, popped up to call for an inquiry into how Mr Cameron could seek to introduce his English Votes for English Laws not by a Bill but simply by tweaking parliamentary rules. No doubt much to the PM's annoyance, John Bercow, the Speaker, agreed to look into it.

But the first reality check for the emboldened PM will come in five weeks' time when Chancellor George Osborne will deliver his second Budget of the year.

It is expected to lay out where the welfare cuts will be made and where any tweaking of thresholds might come to raise some extra cash. The first rule of any new government is - get the bad news out of the way early.