“Brown accused of disrespecting our dead,” proclaimed The Sun yesterday, as though the Premier had spoken disparagingly of some gang-banger tagged in a drive-by.
Should we really see Brown’s imperfect hand-writing as a grotesque insult just because a screaming red-top rag wants to turn a non-story into an excuse to bash a government it has quite openly disavowed? Would we march on the Reichstag if The Sun demanded it?
Mrs Janes may be entitled to her sense of grievance, but even she might see in the fullness of time that a handwritten letter from the PM, even lacking the diligent proofing of a Sir Humphrey, represents a far more respectful gesture than the anonymous, type-written telegram that the war bereaved of earlier generations might have received, if they received anything at all.
Had Brown delegated the matter to a scrupulous flunky, or simply just not bothered, he’d have been politically far better off.
Making a few minor errors in a handwritten note isn’t as disrespectful to a murdered soldier as the mass media using his mother’s grief in a cynical act of political bear-baiting.
The greatest shame belongs to the BBC and other supposedly respectable news providers for giving this tabloid bluster so much serious attention. Once again, an issue has become politically significant because the media wants it to be – this isn’t merely reporting a political process, it is meddling in it. I’d have more respect for the fourth estate if Nick Robinson spent five minutes on BBC News smashing the stuffing out of a Gordon Brown piñata.
