When George Orwell wrote about poverty in the 1930s he described the ordeal of scrambling for coal and difficulties for workers trying to saving up enough money to feed their families. Poverty in Orwell’s day, as it was for all human history up to 1945, meant being hungry. Today thanks to industrialisation and the Welfare State you can work in an unskilled job your whole life and, although you will be considered poor, you will still have enough money to buy some of modern life’s little luxuries. You don’t necessarily need to be a top wage earner to live a better quality of life than that of a medieval king, it is estimated that a salary of £13,000 is needed to enjoy a ‘decent’ standard of living in the UK.

Now I don’t mean to dismiss the existence of financial poverty in the UK, undoubtedly for a vulnerable minority, tight budgets and rising energy prices are sources of anxiety. Yet what is evident is that the twentieth century has been the first in human history when ordinary people have moved from a subsistence existence to having disposable incomes and leisure time to spend as they like.

But there is a new form of poverty that plagues British society; it is not financial poverty but rather a poverty of culture. And who is the man crusading against this poverty? It isn’t Brown or Cameron or a latter day Orwell but rather Jamie Oliver of TV show/advert/cookbook/numerous spin-offs fame. It is easy to mock Oliver and his mockney ways but he is an honest and enthusiastic man with a clear altruistic streak. He may not be George Orwell but he is extremely articulate when he talks about food and his love and enthusiasm for sharing his culinary knowledge is infectious. Now Jamie could have confined himself to vacuous, egocentric TV shows a la Gordon Ramsay, but instead he has used his fame to help improve the lives of disadvantaged teenagers and to expose the shocking standard of catering in our schools. Jamie has now pushed his crusade into Rotherham, which is the epitome of the northern industrial town, I know because I live in one. In the first episode of ‘Jamie’s Ministry of Food’ we saw people that had never cooked a fresh meal for their kids, people who did not know what water looked like when it boiled, people who owned six-burner cookers but didn’t know how to turn them on, a woman who ate ten packets of crisps a day and families sitting on the floor eating chips, cheese and doner meat out of a polystyrene box, with their hands. These people whether in work or on benefits had decent houses, widescreen TVs, satellites, playstations and enough money for cigarettes, tattoos, beer, sweets and other luxuries. No they were not financially well-off compared to many Brits but you do not necessarily need to have lots of money to be rich.

Jamie Oliver hit the nail on the head when he commented on the fact that this situation was “true in London and in the big cities of the north. It is connected to the new poverty. England is one of the richest countries in the world. The people I'm talking about have enormous televisions - a lot bigger than my own - the latest in mobile phones, cars and they go and get drunk in pubs at the weekend. Their poverty shows in the way they feed themselves".

People may feel that it is snobbish to sneer at these poor people and their predilection for kebabs. But since when has it been snobbish to care? Whatever Jamie Oliver is he is clearly no snob. He didn’t have to go to Rotherham, he is a multi-millionaire with a beautiful family, he doesn’t need to show people how to boil water or turn on a gas hob. The point is that he clearly cares about these people and he wants to help them to live better. With heart disease one of Britain’s biggest killers and obesity rates soaring out of control he is simply trying to improve our society. Oliver taught a few simple skills to a mum who lived the despondent lifestyle of someone caught in the trap of dependency on welfare benefits; the subsequent improvement in her confidence and self-esteem was obvious.

Of course some populist local politicians have attacked Oliver’s crusade, one councillor said “The people he put on television were pretty down-market and he gave the impression that everyone here is living like that” The fact is that many people do indeed live like that and it should be the job of local politicians not Jamie Oliver to help people improve their lives. Policy-makers used to think that people who lived on low-incomes had bad diets because they lived in ‘food deserts’, housing estates where it was impossible to find healthy foods at a reasonable cost, if at all. Recent research has shown, however, that healthy foods can be bought almost as easily in poor areas as in affluent districts. Indeed healthy food is considerably cheaper than takeaway food not to mention alcohol and cigarettes. Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said “I hope Jamie Oliver’s programme convinces people that you can make healthy choices without breaking the budget”. Indeed in an age when we have access to fresh produce from across the world at relatively cheap prices it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of politicians to help people improve their diets.

Jamie Oliver is not going to change Britain’s culture of unhealthy diets and heavy drinking overnight but at least he’s trying to do something, and that’s more than anyone else is doing at the moment.