Parkinson blasts ‘puerile’ Jade Goody

Venerable broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson has tested out his status as a national treasure with a forthright attack on Jade Goody and the public’s response to her life and death. Mere days after her funeral, Parkinson is scathing about the reality TV star in an article for the Radio Times.

"Jade Goody has her own place in the history of television and, while it's significant, it's nothing to be proud of," he says. "Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di."

Parky goes on: "When we clear the media smokescreen from around her death, what we're left with is a woman who came to represent all that's paltry and wretched about Britain today.

"She was brought up on a sink estate, as a child came to know drugs and crime, was barely educated, ignorant and puerile. Then she was projected to celebrity by Big Brother and became a media chattel to be exploited ‘til the day she died."

Goody died in her sleep in the early hours of March 22 at the age of 27 after suffering from cervical cancer. On Saturday, after a 21-car cortege drove through the streets near her home, she was buried in her wedding dress in Epping Forest Burial Park. The funeral was watched by thousands of mourners on big screens outside the church. ·