NICK Clegg has launched an attack on the BBC's Jeremy Paxman for his "sneering" attitude to politics.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the Newsnight presenter treated all politicians as "rogues and charlatans".
The intervention came after Paxman said he did not vote at a recent election because he had found the parties "unappetising".
Speaking on his regular LBC radio phone-in, Liberal Democrat leader Mr Clegg said: "Here is a guy who gets paid a million pounds, thereabouts, paid for by taxpayers.
"He lives off politics and he spends all his time sneering at politics. We know that politics is not perfect, but at the end of the day it is the way that we decide how you pay your taxes, how we support our hospitals, our schools, whether we are going to war or not, how we deal with climate change.
"At the end of the day I have got this old fashioned view that if you want to improve something, get stuck in and get your hands dirty. Don't somehow pretend that you can turn your back on it."
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