For god's sake; when the bloody Prime Minister takes time to hand write a letter and gets hauled across the coals for spelling wrong, it's time to take a good look at the News International morality.

Hi;

Besides which he does seem to show genuine signs of dyslexia, whatever happened to acceptance or even acknowledgment of this problem?

AH

Agree. Totally wrong to have a go at Brown over this. He is incredibly busy - under pressure - massively stressed - so I am sure it was unintentional and that is all that matters.

Brown may be a poor leader but this should not have been a story.

why is he even pandering to these fuckwits ?

Murdoch is on the warpath again and lashing out at Oz's Kevin Rudd who he is thumbing his nose at the old creep.

Murdoch and his lackeys are furious because Australia avoided the worst of the economic meltdown. Now another Oz media baron and billionaire Kerry Stokes has hailed Rudd as the saviour and you can be sure he's delighting in having a go at Murdoch's crumbling empire.

You can't get into bed with these ghastly tabloid monsters and expect to survive...Rudd and the Labour Party delibertely decided to sideline News Ltd at the last election after their appalling attempts to derail their campaign...releasing tales of Murdoch's New York Daily News editor tawdry tale of going to a strip club with Rudd when he was a diplomat (so close to a honey trap style action it's not funny)...everything they do backfires and Murdoch's newspapers are hemorrhaging.

The latest laughable attempt was to run headlines proclaiming "Rudd's Support Crumbling"..yeh..from 75% to 71% while Murdoch's preferred lackey is at about 18%.

Cameron is a dill as well to align himself with The Sun.

as someone that has dyslexia I understand the problem...but for any journalist to have a go at someone's spelling is a joke.

They wouldn't need sub-editors if they were perfect?

Of course we should pull out of Afghanistan - and Iraq; we should never have been in there - but not because someone can't spell.

I believe it was the mother of the soldier who was offended by the letter which she said seemed hurriedly scrawled with some words unfinished, as well as the name spelled wrongly. I think that even if he has a form of dyslexia he could put a bit more effort into making his letter presentable. To the family this is a highly emotional moment. When a person in high office, especially if they are partly responsible for the events which took a life, writes to the grieving family they need to be able to show sensitivity. It's not enough to assume that because you are a great individual any careless gesture will do.

He is the Prime Minister. He should know that whatever he does will come under scrutiny, and he should know that people expect high standards of people in such high office. If he has problems seeing or writing, he has staff or family he could call on the check his work. There is no excuse for sloppiness.

there may be something in what you say but I doubt it would count for much with the parent of a lost soldier.

This is a bit similar to an infamous incident decades ago when Labour leader Michael Foot attended a memorial service at the cenotaph in Whitehall. He wore a crumpled overcoat and The Sun beat it up into a huge scandal.

Old soldiers weren't offended-they found The Sun's flippant article and opportunism more offensive.

the letter actually shows he wrote it personally without a secretary..this is a total beat-up.

Mind you, he and his colleagues are guilty of sending them in the first place. That's the real crime.

That's not quite true, Veritas. My father, an old soldier, was offended by Michael Foot's appearance which he saw as disrespectful. He was not alone. One old guy I know voted against Labour for that very reason, even though I thought that reaction was a bit OTT.

I'm sure there were those who were not offended. People are different. But this Brown incident isn't quite the same. Brown is the PM. As such better standards are expected of him. It's not too much for him to hand his letter to the missus and ask her to check it over for him. To send it out in such a state suggests that he didn't really care enough.

Of course he doesn't care JC but he pretends to - like The Sun; they don't care either but feel they must pretend to; everyone wearing a poppy, all of us, don't care unless it's a friend or family.

Hypocrisy is the great God of Britain today.

Say you care about dead soldiers - actually you care more about what you're having for dinner.

Excellent post JK. Hit the nail right on the head.

He is blind in one eye, may have something to do with co-ordination rater than illiteracy?

Don't you just love the angle - NO OFFENSE INTENDED!

I adore the idea of a Prime Minister deliberately intending to wind up the mother of a dead soldier.

"Your killer soldier brat has been wiped out Madam"???

One thing is absolutely certain; Jamie Janes' (spelled right) would be horrified by his Mother's behaviour.

Deliberately causing offense via The Sun (and probably earning a fortune - she's now a CELEBRITY)... wow.

agreed...but grief does odd things to people.

JK2006 wrote:


One thing is absolutely certain; Jamie Janes' (spelled right) would be horrified by his Mother's behaviour.



Jk on the subject of spelling isn't it Spelt and not spelled as you have put. I always thought the former, but then I didn't go to Cambridge.

Back on the topic of Gordon Browns spelling, I think it was just a mis-hearing to have spelt James instead of Janes. James is a common name, how many people do you know called Janes?

I bet David Walliams gets this problem all the time!!

Spelled is, I think, the widely correct form across the English speaking world, although "spelt" appears, according to the COED, to be an acceptable, if singularly British, variant. So it looks like, as this is a British forum, either is goood. Sorry, looks like I spellted that wrong.

Interesting that the serious level of pro-Brown, anti-Sun response was first illustrated here.

And I've always written spelled and not spelt but then I am only a Master of Arts English Literature Cantab!!! (who also gets many more words wrong).

That is because the story is very unfair on Brown. People may hate his policies and his party and even think he is a loser. But the English believe in FAIR PLAY - and that is what the SUN has ignored.

The Sun are being very silly in their Tory Campaign. Today they have outed an affair on Paul Keetch - but he is standing down at the next election - so there is no point in the story at all......

They need a Political Editor with a brain fast - or they will become laughing stocks with this silly coverage of politics.

Will it harm the Tories ? Dont think so because people were voting Tory next election in any case. They cant really add anything to the disaster that is New Labour.

BR wrote:
That is because the story is very unfair on Brown. People may hate his policies and his party and even think he is a loser. But the English believe in FAIR PLAY - and that is what the SUN has ignored.

The Sun are being very silly in their Tory Campaign. Today they have outed an affair on Paul Keetch - but he is standing down at the next election - so there is no point in the story at all......

They need a Political Editor with a brain fast - or they will become laughing stocks with this silly coverage of politics.

Will it harm the Tories ? Dont think so because people were voting Tory next election in any case. They cant really add anything to the disaster that is New Labour.

BRITISH.