Cold comfort in Brown’s hurried sympathy

After letting off a bit of steam over Afghanistan yesterday, I was hoping to tackle a different subject today.

But Gordon Brown’s letter of ‘condolence’ to the bereaved mother of Guardsman Jamie Janes deserves comment. And then some.

When I heard about the incident my first thought was ‘lay off him’. I know, I was as surprised as anyone! It’s generally pretty hard to muster much sympathy for old Broon but I thought that this was simply media vindictiveness.

I was dead wrong.

After being filled in on the details of story I found myself in the unfamiliar position of defending the beleaguered PM. Come off it, I thought, this is the Prime Minister we’re talking about! We’re fighting an impossible war, we’re in a recession. I want his mind on the job. The very fact that he makes the time to write personalised letters to the families of the soldiers who lose their lives in action, well, I find that admirable.

So, I defended him. I told people to ‘get a life’. A sense of perspective was needed, priorities put back in order. Brown has enough bad points to highlight without having to resort to petty jibes about his penmanship.

And then I saw the letter.

What a disgrace. I think Jacqui Janes, already struggling with a grief most of us can only imagine, was commendably restrained in only ‘throwing the letter across the room’. If it was me, I’d have thrown it, stamped on it, spat on it and torn it into pieces.

The letter, sorry, the scrawled memo is an insult to the memory of every dead British soldier. Barely legible and containing more mistakes than the average 6 year old’s homework, this letter sums up the doomed PM. Sloppy, lazy and arrogant.

He clearly dashed it out a single minute without a moment’s thought. The irony is, it only would have taken a couple of minutes more to write a well-worded, well-presented and genuinely comforting letter to a family who have already given more to this country than Brown could dream of.

I’m sorry to sound so bitter but if the government want us to believe in this war then they need to convince us that they truly do care about every single British life lost.

This kid was only 20 years old, for goodness’ sake.

And does this letter prove the government gives a fig?

I’ll let you decide.

@2 years ago