Gordon Brown writes in black felt tip pens......

Which doll?

not a great fan , but atleast he took the trouble to hand write a letter not let one of his secretaries print out a computer generated sheet.

...the fact there was a spelling mistake ? not that important ...surely its the message that counts

The Sun using some poor woman to score points
This is one of the most overhyped, non-event news stories I can remember

It's not really a mis-spelling, just messy handwriting

Totally depressing on all sides

close one eye and squint out of the other. Then try and read text written with a fine liner.

Chunky pens are about all he can see poor guy. At least he had the decency to write a letter in the first place.

I bet this poor woman's grieving will be helped with the money she's received from the sun.

didnt bother his eye introducing over 780 new taxes.....

The general feeling here, is shown in The Sun's 'Your Comments'
at the bottom of their piece on the internet.

Although you can spot one or two 'deliberately inserted' comments
to try and balance the agenda, which is slipping away from The Sun,
most can see through the hype.

The Sun are now trying to incorporate the supplies and equipment
problem into the story, rather than the rubbish handwriting.

The deceased soldier's colleagues and mates over there,
must be cringing slightly.

sad man
brown :(

This is a complete non-story, fuelled by a bereaved mother's grief and a newspaper desperate to smear a prime minister any way it can.

I think Brown is, in general, a reprehensible individual who is out of his depth, and who got where he is by briefing against his then-boss and using his own little footsoldiers to do the same.

However, for all my dislike of him, I think his desire to write to the families of dead servicemen is heartfelt and driven by the fact that he genuinely does feel for them and the loss they've experienced (remember, he lost a child himself).

The dead serviceman's mother thinks he could have survived, and her basis for thinking that is "he bled to death". He'd lost both legs below the knee, had lost a hand, and ultimately his face had to be reconstructed. The chances were he would have bled to death regardless of whether he could be evacuated by helicopter or not. He was on a foot patrol, and foot patrols are necessary. So, much as I feel for the poor woman at the loss of her son, and having to learn about his injuries (which were detailed at the inquest), I don't seriously believe a helicopter evacuation would have saved him. I can't blame her for lashing out though - she's lost a son in circumstances that were utterly terrible.

PoolFC. Good post, I agree with you completely.

I detest new labour (and the sun) with a passion. but this is a cheap shot.

You know those cr.appy political cartoons you get in high brow
newspapers that are supposed to be satirical and funny but are
just plain sh.it. (The day today did a good spoof of them). Well
the torygraph did one a few months ago where Gordon Brown (in the
midst of all this bad eyesight, is he healthy enough to be PM nonsense)
is having an eye test with big letters at the top and getting smaller.
anyway the test board spelled out F A I L U R E, and Gordon was
reading it as S U C C E S S. thought they might get in trouble (basically
taking the p.iss out of his eyesight) for that
and it would become one of those mini-scandal things that get in the
papers and on the tv for a few days when nothing interesting is
happening. Can't be fekked with that paper anymore, just print
crossword off the interweb and use internet for any news. Is a shame
because it has v.good sports coverage imo.

I will never forgive him for saying "no more boom and bust". For
that reason he will always be a C U N T in my opiinion.

agree with Pool too

personally i think this government has done a terrible job at just about everything but this for me generated the first flicker of sympathy for Brown. The Sun is IMO a pathetic paper and anyone who buys it, for whatever reason, is helping to fuel the publication of this and more rubbish like it

I'd cut and paste and back the whole thing up to disk if I were you!

pool
a complete non story




you sad person
people going to war having to buy there own kit

poofc talking out his ar.se as usual

blobby, that's not the story. This story is about the letter.

The story about failing to adequately support our troops is one for which the Labour government should be thoroughly castigated. Troops certainly have died because of lack of helicopters to move them round, but the kid in this case wasn't one of them. Equally troops failing to be supplied (as they were shipped out there) with standard equipment items is a shocking failure on the part of the current government.

So why doesn't the Sun focus on the war rather than the letter?

There are plenty of criticisms which can be made regarding the PM's judgement on Afghanistan (ignoring requests from senior military staff, failing to supply troops properly, questions about whether or not we can even achieve anything in Afghanistan) but instead the Sun chooses to personalise the issue with a sideshow.

As I said, the letter story is a non-story and there are far bigger issues to be addressed regarding Afghanistan. The letter story is all about personal smearing.

Why would someone with a strong argument hide behind a weak one? Makes no sense IMO. I think Pool's analysis is spot on.

The torygraph one :)

I've got to say that this is gutter journalism at its worst, using a lady going through an immense amount of personal grief and anguish to score cheap points off of a PM that they want to get rid of. All because when the inevitable happens and Labour are voted out at the general election the Sun can say 'It woz the Sun wot wun it !!!'.

she should be lead around by a leash