Tony Benn and Margaret Rutherford
As it happens, among Benn's innumerable cousins was Margaret Rutherford, who came to acting late, then achieved immortality as Madame Arcati in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, thereafter becoming a national institution (latterly as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple) in her own right. Benn writes warmly about her kindness to him as a child.

He also reveals that Margaret's father, William Rutherford Benn, murdered his father (Benn's great-grandfather) by banging him repeatedly on the head with a chamber-pot.

Paul Johnson Daily Telegraph 4 October 2004