More sticks and stones.

Transactional Analysis says that we each have three personae within ourselves - the parent (judgmental, dogmatic), the adult (rational, enquiring) and the child (emotional, compliant) and that when we engage in conversation with somebody we are speaking from one of these personae to one of these personae in the person we're talking to, and they are doing the same thing from their end.  If we rank them vertically - P-A-C on both sides of the conversation, then TA says that the ideal conversation, from the point of view of "being on the same wavelength" requires that the line from me to you is the same as the line from you to me.  If the lines are different then we've got problems - if the lines don't cross then we might just get away with it, but if the lines cross then we're in trouble.  Cameron with his "calm down dear" remark was clearly speaking parent to child (behave yourself!) and if the lady in question had reciprocated accordingly, that is child to parent (sorry dad) everything would have been fine, but her response was either adult to adult (I find that offensive) or possibly parent to adult (don't you dare patronise me!) and either way we have crossed lines with all the resulting hoo-haa.  I don't know whether Doctor Harris's book is still in print, but if it is, it's well worth a read.