Brown was right to do the ITV interview

With an audience of four million at 10.15 and a profile that no party political broadcast could replicate, of course Gordon Brown was right to do the interview with Piers Morgan last night. It showed a side of Brown that the public - and many of those who worked in government - rarely saw and he came across the better for it. To say that he shouldn't have talked about his family tragedies in such circumstances is as absurd as saying that politicians should never engage with mass appeal TV shows or talk to the Saturday supplement of The Times. Of course, one television programme won't change the political weather but it does help to leaven the caricature so assiduously cultivated by David Cameron and his media allies ahead of an election, as even Fraser Nelson recognises.