Jamie Oliver is 'most influential celebrity'

JAMIE Oliver is the biggest celebrity influence on Britain's middle classes, ahead of everyone from David Cameron to Sir Trevor McDonald, according to a new style guide.

After a year in which the young chef became the patron saint of school dinners, his campaign to improve the diets of children made him a hero to parents nationwide.

David Cameron, an Old Etonian, is in second place for wooing middle England when he ousted David Davis to win the leadership of the Conservative Party. And the millionaire anti-poverty campaigner Chris Martin, the lead singer of easy-listening rock band Coldplay, came third for bringing such issues to a wider audience.

The influences on the middle classes is published in the guide Class of 2006 from the media agency The Fish Can Sing.

The guide is an annual publication which monitors how the country's middle classes vary and change.

It believes that most of Britain is now "middle class" in one form or another.