Brown weeps over baby Jennifer in TV interview

THE "human side" of the Prime Minister is set to be revealed in a television interview in which Gordon Brown wept as he talked of the death of his daughter Jennifer.

The Prime Minister's eyes filled with tears as he told Piers Morgan he knew that his newborn daughter was not going to survive. She died in 2002 aged only 10 days following a brain haemorrhage.

The exchange took place on Saturday in a recorded interview in front of a live studio audience and is due to be broadcast on ITV next Sunday. Mr Brown also spoke of his three-year-old son Fraser's battle with cystic fibrosis.

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Other topics which are reported to have been covered during the interview include an admission that he occasionally lost his temper, confirmation of "explosive" rows with former PM Tony Blair, and the fact that Mr Blair had secretly promised to hand over power to him – but that the timing lay with his predecessor.

Tony Blair's former spin chief Alastair Campbell, who has been advising Mr Brown, said the interview would help the Prime Minister to reach a wider audience.

"The only communication that works now really is where people are being utterly authentic," he said.

"The public, they hear all this stuff about spin, they know the media spin, the politicians do it and they can see when people are being authentic."

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He added: "If Gordon just talks about some of these issues as he really feels then maybe the public will see a different side."

But he said: "I don't believe Gordon went on television with the purpose of crying."

Mr Campbell told Sky News' Sunday Live: "Ultimately you are in an election year, there is a huge amount of interest in these people as characters as well as politicians.

"People know that Gordon is a serious, substantial person who does the policy. but maybe they do need sometimes to see the more human side."

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In interview yesterday, Mr Campbell himself struggled with his emotions as he defended Mr Blair's evidence to the Iraq inquiry and persistent claims he had misled Parliament over the invasion.

The former Downing Street spin doctor insisted Mr Blair was a "totally honourable" man in an extraordinary appearance during which he frequently had to pause.

He later claimed that he had been upset over a perceived slight comparing his latest novel Maya to the controversial dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.