Gordon Brown attacked over letter 'insult'

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Rob M

You get someone else to hand write it, dictated by you, and then you sign it.

Any time I get something like that I immediately assume its a stock letter and has been handsigned at the last minute with no real thought going into it.

[Peter_]

Being the Sun I wonder how much money they have paid out for this letter and especially the 13 minute recorded conversation that they recorded on Sunday between the mother and GB.

I think it all would have been fine if he got the name right. The fact its wrong makes the letter look rushed irrelevent of handwritting. My writting is very poor but I hope in a situation like this I would know the guys name

[AdamD]

Originally Posted by RizzyKing

So if you lost a loved one you'd be happy to get a badly spelled incorrectly named untidy rushed hand written letter would you just because it was written by the PM of the country. Good for you but true value of someone and something is shown in how you deal with it and GB has done very little to show he truly values the armed forces of the UK except when he wants them to get involved in something and this latest episode is just one more way he shows how much he does really value them.

The fact he spelled the name wrong, was a mistake on his part..but it was just that, a mistake
How do you know he rushed through the letter? As he himself has stated, his handwriting was always untidy
Mine is always untidy, bordering on unreadable and that's not because I "rush" when writing, it's because I have a form of dyslexia. (Dysgraphia or something)

People make mistakes, he shouldn't be hung up and embarrassed in front of millions of people purely because he misspelled a name.

Originally Posted by Moldova

Being the Sun I wonder how much money they have paid out for this letter and especially the 13 minute recorded conversation that they recorded on Sunday between the mother and GB.

Yeah. Seems Brown phoned to apologise and she recorded it on behalf of The Sun so that they could have a running story.

---------- Post added at 08:59 ---------- Previous post was at 08:51 ----------

Originally Posted by zing

I think it all would have been fine if he got the name right. The fact its wrong makes the letter look rushed irrelevent of handwritting. My writting is very poor but I hope in a situation like this I would know the guys name

His name was Jamie Janes. It's not unthinkable he thought it was James. Could easily have heard wrong, saw it written wrong, and so on. The fact is that Brown obviously writes to every soldiers family and if the story was he sent out letters written by someone else then there would also be outrage.

It's kind of sickening to see a paper with such a obvious agenda exploiting the death of servicemen in order to pursue that agenda.

[Saaf_laandon_mo]

Originally Posted by Damien

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His name was Jamie Janes. It's not unthinkable he thought it was James. Could easily have heard wrong, saw it written wrong, and so on. The fact is that Brown obviously writes to every soldiers family and if the story was he sent out letters written by someone else then there would also be outrage.

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It don't think there are any excuses for getting the name of a dead soldier wrong if you are writing his family a personal letter. He would have had full details of the dead soldier's name, and to get that wrong, in my opinion, is extremely poor and I'd add distasteful. When I write a letter to someone I don't know personally I make sure I double check the details to make sure they are correct. For Gordon Brown not to do so in this case might be forgiveable, but its extremely poor.

I think Brown's being a little hard done by in this instance, but if I were him I'd be sitting down and having a good hard think about exactly why the Press campaign against him personally, and his Government, has turned so nasty. I wonder if he's so deluded that he still thinks things are going to be better by next May.

I'm sorry for this woman's loss and I understand her anger but I deplore the lack of dignity with which her son's sacrifice is being associated now.

I also think she is being used by the paper whom won't give a second thought once her story is no longer newsworthy.

This lad deserves a better memorial than being used to sell newspapers.

I think selling newspapers is a secondary concern on this occasion Maggy - the Sun is engaged in war against Brown and Labour with the aim of painting them as totally unelectable by next May.

[BBKing]

I think Brown's being a little hard done by in this instance

A little? Jeez, even I'm feeling sorry for him. Apparently *Tory MPs* are feeling sorry for him.

http://www.septicisle.info/2009/11/i...or-reason.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardia...rdon-brown-sun

If the Sun gave a toss about our soldiers as opposed to getting a pliant government into power that owes them one and will faithfully emasculate the BBC, they'd examine exactly why they're out there* and whether they're doing any good at all. A lot of this poppy-plastering nonsense is a kind of suppressed guilt. Not very psychologically healthy, Britain.

* Because the US are there, and to stop Pakistan becoming a nuclear-armed fundamentalist Sunni theocracy bordering nuclear armed India. Ironically if Brown had the balls to point out the second part, he might have more backing, rather than pretending that it's about security on the streets of the UK.

Originally Posted by Chris

I think selling newspapers is a secondary concern on this occasion Maggy - the Sun is engaged in war against Brown and Labour with the aim of painting them as totally unelectable by next May.

I know that but as a wife and daughter of ex service men I can only think about how this young man deserves to be remembered for his sacrifice not for some spat with the papers and the present government and his mother..I bet he'd be furious to see his mother used in this way..

[BBKing]

I bet he'd be furious to see his mother used in this way

Ask yourself 'would the Sun be going so big on the story if the view she wanted made public was that the war was a waste of time and the boys should all come home'? Plenty of bereaved parents have made exactly that point without making the top of the news agenda for three days.

[punky]

This isn't a constituency letter this guy wrote.

Janes gave his life to his country and Brown can't even care to get his name right? I wouldn't even send a letter or card to a family member with a scribbled out mistake. And we have someone running the country who can't even spell "comfort" correctly?

There is no excuse, and I am dyslexic myself. And for those who said "well, his hand-writing is messy, and he can't see what he's writing properly...", don't forget he read his name out wrong in Parliament.

I don't care who brought this up, this is disgraceful behavior for a PM. It wouldn't be accepted from a subordinate, that's for sure.

Originally Posted by punky

This isn't a constituency letter this guy wrote.

Janes gave his life to his country and Brown can't even care to get his name right? I wouldn't even send a letter or card to a family member with a scribbled out mistake. And we have someone running the country who can't even spell "comfort" correctly?

There is no excuse, and I am dyslexic myself. And for those who said "well, his hand-writing is messy, and he can't see what he's writing properly...", don't forget he read his name out wrong in Parliament.

I don't care who brought this up, this is disgraceful behavior for a PM. It wouldn't be accepted from a subordinate, that's for sure.

Disgraceful and Disrespectful would be not to write a letter at all, or to get a subordinate to write the letter. He didn't, he wrote it himself as he has done for every solider who died while he was prime minster. I think that is respectful. He then phoned about the letter.

I think it's just opportunistic attacks on a unpopular Prime Minster. He is obviously did not mean disrespect, the meant the opposite, but though blunders has created another problem.

He obviously shouldn't have phoned her. I am guessing it was expected by The Sun but still, he should have known it would be recorded.

Originally Posted by punky

This isn't a constituency letter this guy wrote.

Janes gave his life to his country and Brown can't even care to get his name right? I wouldn't even send a letter or card to a family member with a scribbled out mistake. And we have someone running the country who can't even spell "comfort" correctly?

There is no excuse, and I am dyslexic myself. And for those who said "well, his hand-writing is messy, and he can't see what he's writing properly...", don't forget he read his name out wrong in Parliament.

I don't care who brought this up, this is disgraceful behavior for a PM. It wouldn't be accepted from a subordinate, that's for sure.

If he has a visual impairment to can excuse him reading the name out incorrectly. He should have had help I do feel he has been misjudged