But at least I was relatively qualified to cast judgment – I'm a mother myself, my son has school dinners and I can pretty much see Rotherham from my house. If I criticised them, it was from the standpoint of knowing where parents like that are coming from, because I see them every day at our own school gates.

This is what I find so galling about Jamie Oliver's latest attempt to show us how superior he is; sorry, tackle the nation's questionable eating habits. For his television programme, Jamie's Ministry of Food, he has descended on Rotherham, with a mission to "teach" everyone in the South Yorkshire town to cook. My husband, who is from Surrey, reckons he's got guts. I think he's got a massive cheek.

Rotherham's challenges with obesity and health are well-documented. But a premise to "completely change the face of eating, living and shopping in Rotherham" assumes that everybody in the town is ignorant,overweight and in need of Saint Jamie to rescue them. Which, as everybody in Rotherham knows, is simply not true.

Somehow, a mission to "change the face of eating, living and shopping in Gravesend, or Swindon" wouldn't have quite the same ring to it. However, you can bet that there are pockets in those towns where some parents think doner kebabs are a decent tea, and use the fridge to store sweets.

But that's not the point, is it? The north-south divide is not only thriving, it is getting wider, because it makes good television, and it grabs the headlines. Remember the hoo-ha in August over Tim Leunig's report for the Conservative think-tank Policy Exchange on how regeneration in the North has supposedly failed? As soon as the newspapers and websites exploded with a torrent of abuse against its unfortunate author, the Tory leader, David Cameron, couldn't distance himself from it fast enough.

Having lived not only in Barnsley, but also in London and Oxford, I have long been astounded at the ignorance of some people, intelligent people at that, about "up north". It might have trains, and motorways, and, wow, even aeroplanes, but to many, it will always be a far distant land.

Take the London public relations girl trilling excitedly down the phone at me recently: "Oh, yeah, Manchester. It's like, really cool. You can even catch a plane there now," as if the place hadn't existed before easyJet.

And this is the worst bit. The rest of the country won't leave us poor soft-headed northerners in peace to get on with enjoying our gorgeous countryside, amazing towns and cities, and relatively affordable houses. We have to contend with a steady stream of southerners coming up here and telling us how to live our lives, as though, instinctively, they know best.

Jamie says he is "f***ing angry" about the state of affairs in Rotherham, but waving a wok around and swearing fails to address the real problems, such as poverty, lack of education, the demise of the traditional family and communities torn apart by industrial decline that Rotherham – and other towns like it – face.

I doubt that Jamie would have a clue where to start with that lot, and his attitude is less than supportive to all those who are working hard, day in, day out, to turn things around.

When the television cameras have gone, the only thing that locals will be left with is a nasty taste in their mouths. Ask people in Barnsley now about London-based architect Will Alsop and his vision of a Tuscan hill village, and they roll their eyes and look embarrassed. Alsop's fanciful ideas just made us the butt of national jokes. This was hardly what a town recovering from a crisis of confidence caused by the demise of the pits, needed.

Still, we're a tough lot in South Yorkshire. Remaking Barnsley, the regeneration programme, has carried on without Alsop's ministrations. It now has several fine buildings to show for it, not one of which looks like an ersatz Italian palazzo.

Like Jamie's obsession with olive oil and herbs, Alsop's notions were the worst kind of cultural imperialism. This kind of thinking presumes that everything in a place is inferior to what might be imported. Instead of empowering local people, and encouraging them to believe in what that they have to offer, it just makes them feel even more negative about their surroundings and way of life.

If the north is to thrive, and this means culturally and socially, as well as economically, it has to draw on its own inherent strengths. We produce some of the best politicians, writers, musicians and business people, not only in the country, but in the world.

We might have our problems, but we have no need of do-gooders coming up here with their fancy southern ways to make us look ridiculous. The show is over. It's time they picked on somewhere else.