Myleene Klass, Westminster pundit: a new career beckons. Photograph: Rex/Alamy/Guardian montage

There was a time – a golden time, back when he was in charge of things – when using his name as a verb really meant something. If you had been Paxoed, it meant you’d had your legs taken out from beneath you. It meant your argument, whatever it was, had been systematically dismantled by a combination of incisive wit, well-deployed sarcasm and sheer blunt-force trauma. It meant you were no longer a person, just an empty shell quivering in your socks. What a long time ago that was.

Because, now Paxman has abdicated, his name isn’t held to quite the same standard any more. The bar has been lowered so violently, in fact, that you can now adequately Paxo someone by waving a cup at them while honking a series of incomprehensible almost-thoughts like a toddler driven mad by lack of attention.

This is why Myleene Klass – a woman from a reality show who now makes the majority of her income by pointing at things in catalogue adverts – was this week deemed to have dealt Ed Miliband a right old Paxoing on the ITV discussion programme The Agenda. The Huffington Post claimed that Myleene had given Ed “the Paxman treatment”. The Mirror announced that we literally witnessed Myleene “turn into Paxman”. Even this paper declared that she had gone “full Paxman”during The Agenda, suggesting she had grown an unflattering beard and grumbled about the weather instead of just making a series of very loud noises at a startled politician.

Myleene’s points, as far as anyone could reasonably tell, were as follows:

1) She doesn’t like Labour’s proposed policy of imposing an annual property tax on homes valued at more than £2m;

2) Have you seen what £2m will get you in London these days? Basically, like, a garage;

3) Why don’t you tax this glass of water that I’m holding, eh Ed? Eh? Why don’t you just tax that? What do you have to say about that, huh? and;

4) A sort of “Weeeeurgh” noise, then three or four exasperated sighs, then another “Weeeeurgh” noise.

Now, clearly Ed’s response to all this could have been a little better, because he essentially just blinked lots and repeated “the NHS” and “a fairer society’ in increasingly oblique ways, like a Teddy Ruxpinthat’d been dropped into an acid bath. But that’s only because he’s Ed Miliband, a man who probably couldn’t wipe his bum at the moment without inspiring a flurry of political commentators to tell him that using his left hand instead of his right was a disastrous PR move and he should definitely be ashamed to be alive.

Still, Myleene’s outburst hardly seemed worthy of a Paxman comparison. A Gillian Duffy comparison, maybe. Or, if you’re feeling particularly cruel, a Brick Tamland comparison. But, given that this is 2014 and we are all expected to have immediate and immovable opinions on everything as soon as it happens, Myleene was judged to have won this encounter. This, you suspect, is because she had timing on her side.

Even though all her points were demonstrably wrongheaded – only one house in Lost in Showbiz’s postcode is worth £2m, and that has a giant courtyard and something called a “pavilion room” in it – Myleene proved herself to be a straight-talker and, in an age where people have tired of career politicians tiptoeing their way through interviews with nothing but a selection of obfuscating soundbites, that’s enough to make her an all-out hero. Heck, plonk her in a pub with a half-finished pint of ale on the go and she’d probably win the Rochester byelection all by herself.

The question now is where Myleene goes from here. She’s got the fury, she’s got the public support, she’s even got a change.org petition demanding that she’s banned from something, which is the must-have celebrity accessory du jour. Politics is one option, since she undoubtedly has the short attention span and deafening vocal range for the job. But then, now she’s demonstrated a proven ability to stop politicians in their tracks with her incoherent rage, ITV might want her to front a current affairs show of her own, maybe called something like Klass Warfare. The world, to quote one of the Apprentice berks this week, is as big as her oyster.

But where does that leave poor Paxman, now that his place in the world has been taken? If nothing else, there might soon be a vacancy opening up in those catalogue adverts. If he knuckles down and works hard, he could really give that the full Klass treatment.