Jade Goody, the reality TV star who died last month of cervical cancer aged 27, represented “all that is paltry and wretched about Britain”, Sir Michael Parkinson has said.

He told 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. 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.

“When we clear the media smoke screen 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 till the day she died.”

Max Clifford, Goody’s publicist, said: “What Michael forgets to mention is that Jade already has saved countless lives of young women through her battle with cervical cancer. And she has provided the best possible education for her boys and stressed the importance of that.”

Thousands of mourners turned out to say farewell to Goody at the TV star’s funeral at the weekend. Friends and family gathered in St John the Baptist Church in Buckhurst for the service.

Her widower, Jack Tweed 21, was among the six pallbearers for her white coffin which arrived in a vintage rolls Rolls-Royce.

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