The ghost of Tony Benn stalked PMQs

Tony Benn, the most divisive left-wing figure since the war, united the house today.

David Cameron paid tribute to him as an orator, diarist and campaigner. Ed Miliband praised his determination to ‘champion the powerless’ and hold the executive to account.

Miliband moved to Crimea. He called Sunday’s plebiscite ‘illegal and illegitimate’. Cameron trumped him with a curious phrase that bolted a bit of punchy modern sloganising onto a fragment of olde Englishe slang. The referendum, he said, had been ‘spatch-cocked together in ten days at the point of a Russian Kalashnikov’.

The leaders, both keen to denounce Russia in the most savage terms, swapped promises about travel bans, asset freezes and economic sanctions. Then Cameron broke clear of Miliband and suggested booting Russia out of the G8 forever.