FORGIVE me for raising it without being asked but Michelle Dockery, the star of Downton Abbey, believes modern man would do well to take a leaf from the past when it comes to chivalrous behaviour.

Really?

Before the First World War men might stand up when a lady arrived at the dinner table, doff their hats and give up a seat to a lady on an omnibus… but was it really so chivalrous an age when women were all but barred from working in anything but servile jobs, were paid a pittance for doing so, were barely allowed to voice a political opinion and did not even have the vote?

If that was being gallant, give me modern man any day.

Yes, showing good manners can be more difficult today. If you hold a door open for a bloke, that’s fine. When you do it for a woman, it’s a gamble whether she’ll think you’re being patronising.

And it is disappointing when people leave the telly on when you’re visiting, fail to write thank-you letters or tweet during meals… but that’s just changing codes of civility. It doesn’t mean people are less chivalrous.

Bad manners today doesn’t mean using the wrong spoon at the dinner table. And chivalry is having the courage to do the right thing in difficult circumstances whether you are a man or a woman.

Apart from inconsiderate behaviour by people listening to blaring music on buses, there is still one place where boorish behaviour survives: Prime Minister’s Question Time in the Commons.

And if the Prime Minister disagrees that cringe-making old-fashioned behaviour still prevails in the House, I’ve got just one thing to say to him: “Calm down, dear.”