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It's the crying game - Alastair Campbell and Gordon Brown reveal their feminine sides

Is this how we really want these big tough beasts in the political jungle to behave? By crying I mean.

Tony Blair’s former media manipulator Alastair Campbell was apparently on the brink of tears as he defended his old boss Tony Blair’s crazed decision to go to war in Iraq on the Andrew Marr Programme. Campbell was upset that people were impugning his and Blair’s motives, and saying that Blair had fibbed to Parliament.

But didn’t he? And didn’t the always loyal Alastair offer his complete support for this ignoble deed?

Gordon Brown, meanwhile, is said to have shed a tear or two in a forthcoming interview with Piers Morgan on ITV. This apparently happened when Piers asked him about his children, a baby daughter who died shortly after birth and one of his two sons who has cystic fibrosis, still a very nasty and life-shortening condition.

The news from Davos (by our special correspondent Richard Edelman)

Didn't make it to Davos this year for the annual confab between bankers, politicos and numerous hangers-on.

Didn't seem worth it really as most of the participants' reputations have been soundly thrashed over the past year.

But the indefatigable and ever-optimistic Richard Edelman did - well he's the world's leading PR man after all so he would be there to seek out the good (and profitable).

And this is what Richard made of it all (and there's a lot of all):

"I attended my twelfth World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this past week. In previous years, there were exuberant “dot-com” savants (1999), self-assured US diplomats just before the invasion of Iraq (2003), impressive sovereign wealth funds (2007) and confident private equity barons (2008). In turn, each has been humbled within eighteen to twenty four months. Last year in Davos, the world stood at the precipice, with insolvent financial institutions looking to government as lender of last resort and global trade plummeting as recession gripped the economy. Economic collapse has been averted but this year’s Davos attendees were forced to reconsider such basic assumptions including the role of business in society and the private sector’s relationship with government. One left the ice and snow with a distinct sense of unease. Here are a few observations from WEF 2010 about the priorities of world leaders that may inform your thinking and client counsel: