FFS he is half blind

[Fabster]

Gordon Brown does not have full eyesight and that is why his writing isn't great. A name that has been spelt wrong is easily done and does not mean that he doesn't care.

I am no fan of GB at the best of times but I think this is just too much when he can hardly see.

I'm quite shocked that the press have picked this up - like others I think this is just more Brown bashing.

I also have to admit to being quite surprised by the mother, I wouldn't have thought that talking to The Sun and doing interviews on R4 slagging off the PM would be particularly important to her in the circs.

Guess she's angry with Brown for sending her son off to die. Aren't there meant to be stages of grieving, starting with shock and moving on to other emotions - denial or something, but am sure anger comes in there. Only often it's actually anger with the dead, but she's actually got someone else (legitimately) to blame.

Doesn't mean the criticisms are fair, but I wouldn't have a go at her.

Oh, I've seen the video on the Sun website now (loaded so slowly I couldn't see it earlier on this thread). He clearly did get her son's name wrong but corrected himself. Should have started a new letter. The rest is poor handwriting rather than spelling mistakes - do something similar myself in terms of smoothing out letters to the point where they aren't clear, because I'm used to taking notes at great speed while people are speaking and it's more important to get it down than write neatly. Which is disastrous for handwriting in my personal life.

It wasn't Brown that sent him, Blair was PM when we made those decisions. I'm afraid I don't understand the general attitude about 'blaming' the government - I'm not trying to antagonise anybody but if you join the army/airforce/navy you know that 1) the chances are that you're going to serve under a gov whose politics and/or decisions you don't agree with 2)You might have to go to a war zone on their say so and 3) you may well be critically injured or lose your life. He made a choice to join the forces and looking at his age he made that choice after 9/11 so knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Or am I missing the point? Really genuine question am I?

bobthebuddha, that article sums it up perfectly.
edam, should have started a new letter? Why bother when you have the same visual impairment you had when you wrote the first letter.
From my understanding this document is printed in the size of print that Gordon Brown can see. He has 3 choices if he writes a letter. He can either 1/ Have it typed. This woman would have found it impersonal I dare say
2/ Write very big. No doubt this would have been an equal subject of scorn.
3/ Write in your normal hand but risk errors, a bit like writing in your normal hand but with your eyes closed.

WannaBe, I do agree with you, that having a visual impairment should not be used an an excuse for doing a job poorly but I think there is a huge difference between being visually impaired from birth or childhood, like David Blunkett, for example, and having all those years to learn to cope; and becoming visually impaired as an adult. I see people in this situation on a regular basis in work, particularly with conditions such as ARMD. People go from being able to read tiny print in poor light, to having to use a magnifier in bright light to read a newspaper headline. And low visual aids are not always easy to use, either, they can be unwieldy things which enlarge the print but have to be held very still so that the print doesn't shake and even if people do learn to use them, their reading speed will be cut down dramatically.

There is often a denial period as well, where people try to pretend to themselves and others that their vision is not really all that bad and that they can cope with exactly the same things as they did before. I suspect GB may be in this phase, he's a stiff-upper-lip type of guy, as far as I can tell.

I do admire him for sending a handwritten letter as it is not an easy thing for him to do. And yes, this lady is grieving and is probably lashing out but I do think he is an unfair target and tbh, I really think if I lost any of my boys, that the handwriting and spelling in a letter of condolence would be the least of my worries.

Spicy - GB was Chancellor, effectively no. 2 in govt. He is as responsible as Blair. You are right that anyone who joins the forces must know they may be sent to war at the whim of the government of the day, and may have to risk their lives but it seems a bit off to say that to a grieving mother. Even if she is being a bit harsh about GB's handwriting.

So if he gets slated for a letter that 'got it wrong' does he get any praise for a letter that got it right?

Nah Bronze, people only like to hate GB

I think i'd be the second lady but who knows.

No Bronze he won't get any praise for that letter nor for the many others he has had to write.

I am no great fan of GB (although he is a very marked improvement on the creepy Tony Blair imo) but this is all a bit out of hand. Apparently his 13 minute phone call wasn't good enough either. This poor woman who lost her son needs to let it go for her own sake because I don't think, no matter how much she complains and how much the media milk it, kicking up a political storm is not going to make her feel any better.

I felt rather sympathetic to the grieving mother at first, even though IMO she got it wrong. But this latest development is plain nasty. She's allowing herself to be used as The Sun's stooge to give Gordon a good kicking. FGS, she must know perfectly well he has lost a child too - in very different circumstances but he's hardly unfeeling.

GB doesn't deserve the kicking he is getting for this. I think the eyesight issue is a red herring. The Sun are using this grieving woman. Listening on the radio to the recorded conversation was very uncomfortable. I think this is terribly

my god listening to her listing her sons injuries is heartbreaking

still dont agree with her taking the letter to the sun though, gb looked like a broken man during the press interview.

There is a time and a place for this and its not in the sun or on sky news.i find the whole dragging it through the press incredibly disrespectful to hte young man who dies There is nothing to be gained by doing this.

agree it's silly
a handwritten letter is open to mistakes..

I completely agree with noddyholder

We all feel sorry for the woman who has lost her son. However dragging this through the press with all the attendant bandwagon jumping that's going on is really unpleasant.

I'm no fan of GB either but this is ridiculous. Surely there are bigger issues to report on.

The last f*cking thing I would give a toss about if my son died is whether someone slightly mispelt his name in a condolence letter. How can that possibly be important? (okay, okay, imho, but I.Just.Don't.Get.It; I would have so many other things to deal with in her shoes).

I hate the way the media drives the news agenda in this country. I hope this backfires bigtime on the Sun.

She can't spell either... she's forgotten to correct "cumfort".
I wonder what her son would make of all this. I sympathise deeply with her... I can only imagine the grief and hurt she is going through. However, The Sun is the last place I would go to whilst grieving.

I think it stinks - The Sun are the pits (but that's not surprise) as others have said - I really hope this backfires badly on the paper. Surprised by the beeb giving it air time to be honest.

poor man he can't do wrong for doing right.
imo the poor mother is just looking for some one to be angry with.

again, i find Mumsnet to be the only place where anyone is being sensible and grown-up about a media-led circus. The Sun clearly have a massive agenda and are willing to exploit as many grieving mothers as it takes to ensure Cameron wins the next election.

I hate, hate, hate that bloody newspaper. Am i the only person who strongly suspects that 90% of staff at the place are public-school/oxbridge grad tories masquerading as salt of the earth, tit-loving, patronising parodies of 'working class values'?

It pisses me off that the real working classes are so broken down by successive Thatcherite/ Thatcheresque governments that they no longer have the will to see through this transparent nonsense and read a newspaper/ vote for a party that might actually have good intentions for them.

There was much support for him on this topic on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 at lunchtime.
In particular, one mother who had also lost a son and been written to ( with spelling mistakes) was shocked at the way his letter had been received.

I think it is a rather nice letter. I think that the problem for this mother is that she feels that he was let down after he was injured, and that led to his death. So she is attributing his death to more than just the fact that he was in a war. And that's fair enough if true (and normal for her to be angry in any case), and I can understand if you think that your child was abandoned to die then it would be very important to get his name right because she would feel that he wasn't considered of any importance.

I am surprised that such letters are hand written, but it may well be that that is the protocol, and if so that is good. I think that the cock up here is with the information given to GB (presumable where the Janes/James muddle comes from) and also with the checking, but I don't actually think the handwriting is particularly terrible (most of the "spelling" errors look more like bad handwriting to me too).

I can also well imagine that this is a growing problem, with GBs eyesight having deteriorated.

I'm actually feeling really sorry for BG

GB- " I'm a parent who understands the feelings when something goes terribly, terribly wrong "

You know I know he will never forget whats happened to him and Sarah and that it's probably never far from his thoughts but he's felt like he's had to drag it out into the public arena again.

"Mrs Janes said other mothers of dead soldiers who had received notes of condolence felt "similarly" aggrieved. " Yet all the ones I've read about have been grateful for any condolence letters at that difficult time though I'm not denying there might be some

I think it should just be let to lie now (shes says posting again) but I doubt the sun will let it

I agree with whoever it was who said that the mother's response to GBs letter is more to do with the understandable grief at the loss of her son, than the actual letter. I think when people are grieving (and IS there anything worse than the loss of a child,however old he is) then it is very easy for them to be upset over things that are not meant to upset, and maybe this is the case here.

I think some of the so called spelling mistakes, aren't quite that, but just down to poor hand writing, letters cramped together so it looks mis-spelt. I really can't imagine that GB can't spell.

Obviously the letter sparked something off in that mother, maybe something to do with the Govt offering condolences whilst being responsible for instigating the war and continuing to support it, and the way the letter was written was just a kind of catalyst.

And SO agree with you totalmisfit about the SUN - what is worrying is that about 70% of the population raead it!