The mud flew.

Indeed, there was so much of the stuff that at times it was difficult to make out who was attacking whom as the Speaker intervened repeatedly and the volume in the Commons chamber grew and grew. Anyone would have thought an election was drawing near.

The nub of this week's ding-dongery was HSBC and, with the names of Conservative donors being linked to the tax evasion scandal, Red Ed smelt blood and wanted to know about the "revolving door between Tory Party HQ and the Swiss branch of HSBC".

As the comrades huffed their incredulity, Blue Dave rose, raised his nose ever so slightly and pointed out one of those named was, er, Labour donor Lord Paul, who had bankrolled Gordon Brown's election campaign. The Tory berserkers piped up and roared after the PM insisted his government had done more to tackle tax evasion than any other. So there.

But the chief comrade would not be shaken, accusing the PM of being "up to his neck in this". He roared: "He's a dodgy Prime Minister surrounded by dodging donors!" The red team bellowed their approval as the volume level hit maximum.

Then the little issue of Lord Green, the ex-HSBC big cheese, was raised with Red Ed suggesting it beggared belief the dodgy PM did not know about the tax avoidance allegations given he had appointed the peer as Trade Minister months after they were made.

Indeed, the PM was asked if he had had any conversations about tax evasion with the noble Lord, to which Dave insisted "every proper process was followed"; a conspicuous non-answer, which raised eyebrows and suspicions.

As the mud continued to fly, the gentle art of intellectual sparring had given way to bare-knuckle fisticuffs. Red Ed was on fire, jumping up and barking: "He's banged to rights just like his donors!" All jolly stuff.

As the chief comrade tried to link Cameron's blind-eye turning on HSBC to the Andy Coulson affair, the PM hit back, insisting Miliband was engaging in "fiction" and "desperate stuff" because the economy was doing ever so well.

Amid the testosterone-fuelled hullabaloo, it was noticeable the Pink Comrade was absent.

La Harman, of course, was busy in her magenta campaign "Barbie bus", trying to woo the good women of Britain to vote Labour in one would hope was a little less aggressive manner than that her esteemed colleague had employed back at the glorious Commons mudbath.