'PRIME Minister, is there anything else you would care to tell us about?" These were the words with which an obsequious TV host of the 1950s ended a cosy, but hopelessly uninformative interview with the PM of the time.

It couldn't happen now. The age of deference is dead, thankfully. But anyone who watched Newsnight this week, with Jeremy Paxman in full attack mode against Foreign Secretary David Miliband might wonder if common courtesy has also become a victim of collateral damage.

Paxman previewed his approach in his BBC blog where he described the MP for South Shields as looking like the "school swot". On screen, he followed up the schoolyard insult with an excellent impression of an insecure adolescent trying to wind up a new teacher.

Miliband explained the position on disinvestment in Burma. Paxman looked sceptical and then looked at the ceiling. The Foreign Secretary moved on to Iraq. Jeremy doodled and played with his pen. Waiting in the wings, Paxman's Little Sir Echo, Michael Crick, chimed in with a comment on Miliband's "uninspiring" conference performance. Goodbye and thank you then, Foreign Secretary. Pick up what's left of your reputation on the way out.

The net result of this masterclass in rudeness, was that I, and I suspect most viewers who could bear to watch, broke the habit of a lifetime and sided with the politician.

We were right to do so. Miliband came across as earnest, honest and with a firm grasp of the most difficult brief in government. He also came across as - dare I say it - a sincere and humane person. When he didn't know an answer he admitted as much. Give me time and I'll make sure the response goes on your website, he said.

His measured performance made Paxman look cheap. Both he and the corporation he represents can and should do much better than that.

The fact is, for years now, politicians and broadcasters have been involved in their own version of the arms race. As ministers have become slicker, better-briefed and more media-savvy, their interrogators have become more strident and aggressive. Like the arms race, the end can only be mutually assured destruction.

But we'll be the casualties. Watching this interview, I felt distaste, an urge to turn the TV off and, most of all, like someone who was eavesdropping on a private argument. But it wasn't a private spat. We should be listening and taking part. Politics is not a spectator sport.

But we will only listen and be involved in politics if political dialogue is framed in a way that is accessible and inviting. It doesn't mean dumbing down, just more emphasis on issues and analysis; a little less on egos.

It's ironic that another Jeremy was under fire this week, Jeremy Kyle. I've never watched his show and never will. As far as I can make out, it holds up to public view sad people who can't manage their own lives and who gain a kind of catharsis by sharing their grief with a baying studio audience. A judge described the show as "human bear baiting". That sounds about right.

I am sure the Oxbridge educated Mr Paxman, author of several respected books, would be mortified to be compared with his rabble-rousing namesake. But I would respectfully suggest that he takes a good look at himself and the videotape of his interview. It was ugly, unnecessary and, worst of all for a TV show, a real turn-off