'bale'?

Has anyone seen the letter?I had trouble telling whether it was a badly formed 'm' or an 'n'.
I think it was a nice personal gesture..and agree with the post that says if it were any other visually impaired person,people would be up in arms.
Should have been proof read perhaps..maybe he felt it was more personal to do the exercise by himself.
Regardless of other criticisms of him,this smacks of a smear campaign..and a pretty crap one at that.

How rooode!

With handwriting like that, Gordon's missed his vocation.  He should be handing out prescriptions!

Crap smearing sounds about right, for the Scum 'News'paper.

Indeed!

LOL!!Thankfully they are typed out now!

ine aren't luckily the pharmacy can read it!

When any of us sit down to write a letter, whether we be a Prime Minister or anyone else, we tend to write in a personal heartfelt style when the letter we are writing is one of sympathy.  At that time, we do not expect a national newspaper to print our words.  I have seen the PMs letter today for the first time because I do not read The Sun.  It's a pretty low trick to publish a letter like this, irrespective of the writing style.  I am sure GBs letter came from the heart, and the woman receiving the letter should have treated it with the privacy and dignity it deserved.  I am a spelling freak, I hate poor spelling, but in this instance I can overlook the inconsistencies in spelling and focus more on the heartfelt sadness within the letter itself.  GB has sight difficulties, he writes with a marker pen, and sometimes letters and characters on the written page can be inaccurate when the words need to be so big in order that the Writer can see them.

I'm  a bit of a spelling Nazi myself....but I completely agree with you.

Twee - I agree entirely with what you said.
I feel sorry for the woman losing her son, of course I do - I can only imagine how awful she must feel, but she is showing herself up now in this relentless smear campaign IMO.

As someone with very bad eyesight,there was no excuse whatsoever for GB not to ensure that everything in the letter was grammatically correct.
Having said that, it was wrong of the press to make such a meal of it.

I saw the letter on the Sun website. I thought the majority was not so much spelling mistakes, rather extremely poor writing. I really dislike GB, but I think he tried his best in showing respect for the poor lad and his family. I find it kind of hard to accept that the mother went to the press about it all. Grief I suppose. It was probably a way for her to raise her frustration at the lack of facilities and equipment that may have had an effect on her son's death. It's just such a shame that the poorly written (not the content) letter, has taken centre stage, and not the real point that she wished to bring up.

ty Mazzy and Moomin.  I agree with you Moom, there cannot be anything worse than losing your son and perhaps this is easing the pain for her by exposing GB as a poor speller.  We all want someone to blame when grief strikes, someone is usually responsible (in our minds), and they have to be exposed.  She would probably be better focussing on why her son was in Afghanistan and put the blame in that quarter, rather than highlighting the poor writing and spelling of someone who was trying to sympathise with her.   GB did not initiate the war in Afghanistan, it was a joint decison, taken before his time as PM, with other countries to invade (as was Iraq) and the blame has to be placed on the shoulders of all those countries jointly.  And not to place the monopoly of blame on a poor writer and speller, who is also partially blind.

I agree with that Jenny

Does anyone know if the Sun are paying her?

Did anyone hear the conversation on the news?  She is clearly mad about her son, but I thought her anger was really misplaced.  GB didn't initially send troops to Afghanistan, yes he could pull them out, but it wasn't him who made the decision.

My heart goes out to her for losing her son, in any circumstances we do not want our children to go before us. The more I read about what she's allegedly saying, the more it's coming out as anger and frustration at his death. I'm finding more myself feeling sorry for GB too, it's been reported that he told her it was not a spelling mistake, just his handwriting is really bad... with recent reports about his eyesight, I think the SCUM have well and truly gone overboard with this to be honest.

I can sense the Murdoch press vigorously stoking this one up in support of their new-found allies, the Conservative party.

I really dislike GB and his politics, however, on this occassion I do feel sorry for him. The Sun has made it political....shame on them.....I can imagine a reporter sat beside her egging her on during the phone call I know The Sun recently declared they would no longer be supporting the Labour Party, but I think they're a little below the belt on this one.....

Totally agree DD, I can't stand Murdock or his newspapers, trash of the highest order!

Historically they've always been Tory. They only "backed" Blair in 1997 because it became obvious that he was going to win by a landslide.

On last night's news all the footage had the Sun's masthead in the top RH corner. I assume this means that they paid the Sun at least.

I also understand that the lady needs someone to blame, her grief must be unbearable, so sad. , though I'm sure her Son wouldn't want to be remembered for being the fallen Soldier whose memory the Sun (IMO) is exploiting for their own gain.

... and that he was going to continue with Thatcheism and be anti-Europe.

Exactly.

 Ta for correcting my typo.

She was adamant in the phone call that she supports the troops being there, and even chastised GB for not sending even more soldiers in.

Her argument really is that she feels her son was let down by there not being sufficient equipment to sort his injuries quick enough. She basically says he bleed to death, presumably because there was not the helicopters there to get him to the medical help he needed quick enough.

hi jenny.  When I mean 'why' he was in Afghanistan I mean the reason why he was there in the first place.  I am not aware of what was said in a telephone conversation or what the mother's views are on Afghanistan per se.  Had the decision been taken by Britain to avoid going into that country, her son would still be alive today.  General Sir Mike Jackson highlighted these problems with equipment some time ago and, obviously, some parts of the British involvement there leaves a lot to be desired.  There were not enough shells available in the First World War either, but that is the nature of war.  It's always easy to be critical about lack of supplies, etc.  Had the young soldiers killed last week by a rogue policeman kept their flak jackets/helmets on after their patrol, some of them may have survived the onslaught.  Lessons will have been learnt from that and I expect security around this aspect of their leisure will have been tightened.  

This poor woman is obviously grieving for her beloved son.  But to involve the Sun in her grief, by exposing GBs poor writing style, is not the answer.

I think it was really sloppy of him to send it out as it was without being checked. He's had poor eyesight for years - surely he must have some sort of system in place for checking his written work?

But Rexi, it was a personal letter.  He may have written it as a private gesture of sympathy, and without the knowledge of anyone else.  Even GB has to have the prerogative of writing personal letters, just like the rest of us have.  To allow someone to proof read your personal correspondence sometimes makes the correspondence less personal.  GBs letter was written, warts and all, and from the heart imo.

That maybe true - but he cannot be naive enough to realise that the letter wasn't going to be seen by a wider audience. Surely he didn't expect the mother to put it in a pile with all the rest of her letters and cards and not show it to anyone else? His letter to Susan Boyle hit the press ... he must have expected this to.


I don't doubt that he meant it in the nicest possible way - but for a senior politician to leave himself so open to ridicule in the press like this ... it kinda floors me.

that letter looked just like my nan's handwriting when her eyesight started to go. she used to be really neat and take grammar etc very seriously. i remember her leaving a note for the milkman asking him to leave some bottles of pooh on the doorstep....good thing he knew she meant pop

There's a big difference between passing the letter around family and friends, and passing it onto The Sun. None of the other letters he's sent to bereaved families have been passed onto the press, so why would he expect this one to be different?


As for Susan Boyle: I don't think that's comparable, She has a publicity agent, so if you wrote a letter to her, you would expect it to be handled differently.

Hi Twee, I agree with both these quotes.

completely agree DD, think the sun  has shot itself in the foot n this one.

She's blaming the government for lack of equipment which would have saved him, she claims, despite his injuries had it been available.  It sounds like the coroner has brought her to this conclusion.  That's obviously very sad and it must eat away at her I expect.

However, most infantry soldiers I see interviewed seem to be really up for seeing some action and doing the job they're trained for.  In fact, that's usually their words.  They're professional soldiers and they must expect to be sent around the world waging war, or keeping the peace in a former war zone, or providing humanitarian aid, or whatever. It's hardly a secret when they sign up.  And the families of those killed seem to say that they loved their job.

Arguably (and it is arguable), our armed forces are in Afghanistan protecting the security of our country as a byproduct of supporting UN resolution 1890 (2009) which is primarily intended to stablise that country.  It's politics.  The UK gains politically by supporting the UN and meeting its NATO obligations.  We get a seat at the top table for doing so.  The harsh reality is that soldiers are effectively public servants, like members of the civil service, doing whatever their political masters decree.  They can hardly complain about that or pick and choose their action as it's their job.

I don't think that when GB wrote the letter that it was intended for anybody else other than the immediate family of the dead soldier.  It was intended as a sympathy letter for their eyes only.  Today, millions have been able to read his letter of sympathy and that is wrong.  It was meant to be private and it is now in the public domain, because of The Sun newspaper.

I agree up to a point. If the Government is told time after time that the equipment is inadequate and still nothing is done about it, then they have a legitimate reason to complain. By the same token, I feel they have a legitimate reason to suggest that the current strategy isn't working. Having said the latter, after listening to 'The Politics Show' and then the news, Army High Command seem to have differing views on the strategy.

As has often been the case. If so standby for "Your soaraway 10p sun!"
 "Holidays in Bromsgrove for £1!"
 "Cheryl shows her tattybojangles in your sun exclusive!"  etc etc.