PM: 'Goody's work will benefit thousands'

The Prime Minister has spoken of the courage and determination that Jade Goody showed in the months leading up to her death from cancer.

Gordon Brown said that he was "deeply saddened" by today's passing of the 27-year-old, adding that her work to raise awareness of cervical cancer since her diagnosis last August would benefit thousands of women in the UK.

Floral tributes have been piling up outside the Essex home of the mother-of-two, who rose to fame as a contestant on the Channel 4 reality show Big Brother.

Stephen Fry said on his Twitter mini-blog that Goody was a "kind of Princess D from the wrong side of the tracks", while fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty said: "I am deeply saddened by the news but in hindsight glad she is out of pain and passed away peacefully in her sleep."

Reverend Jonathan Blake, who officiated at Goody's marriage to Jack Tweed last month, told Sky News that Goody had "laughed in the face of death".

"Her great sense of generosity of spirit, particularly in allowing us to take a journey to the rainbow bridge between this world and the next, is a source of inspiration to people and families who are going through the exact same thing," he said.

Big Brother producer Phil Edgar-Jones said that she had touched a lot of people because she was so "real", adding: "She represented an idea that you could get opportunities and if you get opportunities you could make the most of them, no matter where you came from, and I think that's inspired a lot of people over the years."

> Click here to see Jade Goody's Life in Pictures