Posh boys’ den – No 10, bankers’ heaven – No 11

Business of the House questions was later than usual this morning to allow the House of Commons to pay tribute to Tony Benn who passed away earlier this week. He was a huge figure in the Labour movement who we will never forget. His son Hillary and his long-time friend Dennis Skinner made particularly moving tributes.

I began questions by raising the worsening situation in Ukraine. Crimea has been annexed, and Russian troops appear to have taken control of several Ukrainian naval bases. When the House of Commons debated the matter on Tuesday there was cross party agreement that the UK response needs to be much more robust than it has been so far, so I asked Andrew Lansley to confirm that if President Putin persists the UK government will support wider economic and financial sanctions against Russia.

The zombie government have so many gaping holes in their increasingly threadbare legislative programme that the Conservative chief whip has resorted to emailing Tory backbenchers to ask them for suggestions to fill the time. He’s obviously forgotten what happened with last year’s Tory Tea party tendency’s ‘alternative Queen’s speech’. I asked the leader of the house to tell us if this means that the remaining parliamentary time left before the Queen’s speech will now be filled with Europe, Europe and yet more Europe.

Yesterday George Osborne delivered the budget and hoped no one would notice what is actually going on with his failing economic plan. He said he would cut borrowing but now he is set to borrow £190bn more than he first forecast. He said the economy would grow by over eight per cent but it has grown by less than four. And he said he would eliminate the deficit by 2015 but now he has admitted that it will take until 2018.

The Tories’ patronising and insultingly clichéd view of working people was revealed after the budget when Grant Shapps tweeted that now infamous advert. You might be £1600 a year worse off, but don’t worry you can drink more beer and keep more of your bingo winnings. Even the chancellor’s deputy, Danny Alexander, thought it was a spoof. The Tory bingo hash tag that was trending worldwide last night says it better than I could: posh boys’ den – number 10 and bankers’ heaven – number 11.

I finished by noting Michael Gove’s turn as Brutus last Saturday on the Ides of March. He criticised the number of Etonians in number ten as ‘preposterous’ and after a few glasses of fine wine waxed lyrical George Osborne’s prime ministerial potential to Rupert Murdoch. You’d need more than a few glasses of wine to think that!