Editor-At-Large: Ingenious Jamie deserves a seat at the high table

I realise that Jamie Oliver's not everyone's cup of tea. It's become cool to slag off his cheeky chappie persona, moan about his mockney slang and sneer about his over-enthusiastic menus littered with phrases like "truly scrumptious". And he's piling on the pounds. Plus, there's the failure of his school-dinners campaign – in spite of a determined effort (and belated government backing) to get kids eating healthier school meals, the number of pupils paying for them has actually declined. Does he spread himself too thin? Jamie Oliver is a multimillion-pound business, hardly off our screens, growing vegetables, cooking at home, advertising that supermarket. His recipe books are lavish, expensive affairs, each one the weight of a small encyclopaedia, containing loads of pictures and not a lot of content. You could feed a family of four for a couple of days for less than the cost of one of these tomes. But, in the end, Jamie really does care about what we eat – and that makes compulsive television.

We are a truly warped society, judging by his latest series, which started on Channel 4 last week. We love to buy glossy cookery books and splash out on swanky kitchens. Millions of us love to watch Jamie, Hugh and Gordon on the telly, but, perversely, we don't actually do the C-word: cooking. The penny finally dropped for Jamie during his school-meals campaign, when one mum in Rotherham passed takeaways to kids through the playground railings. The fact is that a generation of mums have no idea how to cook and Jamie's new series – set in Rotherham – reveals kids who've never eaten fresh food, and women who don't know what water does when it boils. Mums with six-hob cookers who don't know how to turn them on. Mums who clearly care about how they look on the outside – with trendy tattoos, fashionable jewellery, and sporty separates – but who don't seem to care or have a clue about the quality of what they put inside their bodies. Whose refrigerators are full of cans of beer, fizzy soft drinks, and dozens of chocolate bars and every kind of confectionery in the trays meant for fruit and veg. Cupboards full of crisps and tins of beans. How did it come to this? Jamie's Ministry of Food aims to get these people cooking and then passing recipes on to their friends.

The poverty on display in this series is the poverty of aspiration, the poverty of basic knowledge. The people who can't cook don't live in derelict homes, but ones with huge tellies, big sofas, microwaves and washing machines. Some might not have our standards of hygiene or our priorities, puffing on cigarettes while whingeing about having no cash for food, but all deserve our understanding. Sneering isn't an option – we'll be paying for their healthcare on the NHS if nothing is done. The Government plans to reintroduce cookery in secondary schools next year, but that's too little too late. Current levels of child obesity surely dictate that cooking should be taught as soon as kids start primary school. Once people can cook, they gain self-respect.

Jamie Oliver clearly deserves a seat in the Cabinet. He's got more ideas and more genuine commitment than most of the lacklustre bunch sitting round the table, no matter how Gordon reshuffles the pack.

Talent show: The McCartneys never rest on their laurels

OK, they're stinking rich and won't be worrying about their mortgages, but the McCartney family certainly are grafters. Paul's got an album out next month, under the pseudonym The Fireman, and each song was written in a day.

The lyrics turn out to be thinly-veiled comments on his acrimonious divorce from the horrid Heather, now (thankfully) trying to relaunch herself on the other side of the Atlantic. Hard-working Stella gave birth to her third child eight months ago, but even picky fashion editors agree that she showed her best collection yet in Paris last week.

I like Stella's clothes – they've morphed from rock chick to wearable, over the past few years. She's one of the few designers whose clothes fit women with real figures. Sure, there are some cute short numbers, but the vast majority of the collection is soft, loose and flattering.

So can someone explain the hype surrounding Karl Lagerfeld? This weird old man in his ludicrous get-up of powdered hair, fingerless gloves, and high-collared shirts shows signs of losing the plot – his latest designs were rather vindictive, almost as if he loathes women. Three cheers for uncomplicated Stella.

Call me Madam

Who can you trust with your cash in these bleak times? How can our banks – the very people who charge us for every pound overdrawn – lend more than they actually have? Would a supermarket do better? Tesco is opening dentists, opticians and doctors' surgeries in its stores, and plans to expand into banking, having bought the shares of Tesco Personal Finance it didn't own from Royal Bank of Scotland. At this rate, the plans of Tesco's chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, for world domination must mean that it's only a matter of time before he offers maternity units where Mum can pop in and drop her sprog before continuing with the shopping. I hope it does better at attracting women than my bank, which has just sent me a letter addressed "Dear Sir". Shocking!

This country jails its young

One cabinet minister with a less than impressive record must be the Schools and Children's Secretary, Ed Balls. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has completed an assessment of how we treat our 13 million youngsters aged under 17. It made 120 recommendations in its report, published last week. One area of concern is the appalling number of 10- to 14-year-olds in custody – nearly 3,000, double the number of 10 years ago – and 80 per cent of children who are locked up reoffend, hardly proof that custody works. We have more young people in custody than any other European nation and double the number in Germany, in second place. The report wants Asbos to be scrapped. It asks the Government to look at our "intolerance" of children. Our current heavy-handed way of dealing with anti-social youth just isn't working.

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