Tony Blair has escaped his first Commons mauling since the government's "Black Christmas" after a question time session that failed to spill the blood and guts backbenchers had been waiting for.

The BBC's John Sergeant: "This has been Mr Blair's most difficult period in government"

William Hague should have had all the advantages. Two ministers have quit over their private financial arrangements, a senior spin doctor is on the way out and the foreign secretary has been branded a drunken adulterer by his jilted ex-wife who also exposed the feuding at the top of the government.

The BBC's Jon Sopel reports on events in the Commons

One of the fallen ministers, former Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson, has been accused of planning to oust Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Chancellor Gordon Brown in his now thwarted campaign to replace Mr Blair.

And the prime minister's alleged attempts to bring Mr Mandelson back into the centre of government have sparked a major backbench rebellion.

The opposition leader attempted to make the most of it all with a nice line in name calling - the prime minister became "St Tony the angel of Islington" and Peter Mandelson was branded "the Kickback Kid".

Don't mention sleaze

Prime Minister Tony Blair: These problems were left to us by the Conservative government

But Mr Hague had gone into the Commons chamber painfully aware that the one line of attack he desperately wanted to use had been denied him by his own party's previous antics.

Every political nerve ending in his body must have been screaming at him to utter the "S" word and be done with it, but he couldn't. Mention sleaze and everybody thinks Tory.

As a result he attempted instead to link the government's problems with the crisis in the health service.

He twice attacked the prime minister over the state of the NHS only to be told it was all the previous government's fault.

William Hague: Labour feuds are replacing policy

On the third attempt, he finally gave his best shot. "For the prime minister there's always someone else to blame. The NHS is in crisis and he says the government is innocent. Whatever happens in this government, everybody always says they are innocent.

"The trade secretary resigns and he is innocent, the paymaster general resigns - and now we know why he was called the paymaster general - and he is meant to be innocent.

"The chancellor's press secretary resigns, or intends to resign, and he is innocent. The NHS is in crisis and the prime minister is innocent - Saint Tony, the angel of Islington is always innocent," he taunted.

The prime minister saw his escape. "It didn't take him long to try and get off the health service," he declared before continuing his attack on the previous government's record.

Comeback kid

Mr Blair added: "We are going to deal with the appalling mess inherited from the government of which he was a member and said nothing about the health service."

So Mr Hague tried again: "The reason they haven't been able to handle this over this winter is because they have been too busy attacking each other, because he has been too busy first trying to protect Mr Mandelson, then trying to rehabilitate him.

"What is he doing treating him as the comeback kid when he is in fact the kickback kid.

"Haven't the last few weeks been a disgrace and isn't it time he buried the spin doctoring politics of New Labour with the self-serving, high-living career of the politician who invented it.

"While the NHS has been in crisis, personal feuds have taken the place of political principle, personal loans have the place of political priorities."

Once again Mr Blair was off the hook, he even turned the tables on Mr Hague pointing out that cuts in the training of nurses blamed on Labour had in fact been implemented by the Tory government.

And he rounded off with a neat sideswipe at Mr Hague's leadership. Pointing to a TV programme featuring ex-minister and Tory leadership hopeful Michael Portillo, he said: "As for all the personal feuds, I tell you what would worry me about any Cabinet minister past or present - if I ever catch them being filmed making train journeys across Spain."

The Labour benches dissolved into guffaws and Mr Hague sat down knowing that he had probably done all he could to embarrass the prime minister.

He had shown that the prime minister was desperate not to answer questions about the crisis surrounding the resignations of his two ministers.