Where the Sun don't shine.....
It's not often I feel a modicum of pity for Gordon Brown, but I feel myself strangely angry at The Sun, and it's manipulation of a greiving mother.
We all sometimes suffer from word-blindness, where you misread a word. I suppose it is a very mild sort of dyslexia, but one that tends to imprint the wrong word onto your consciousness.
Is the Chancellor Alastair, Alasdair or Alistair Darling? Why do people insist on spelling my surname with an H? At the PLI into the Eishken wind farm I read the wrong name out from the statement I wrote by myself, and made a bit of an ar$e of myself.
But to attempt to pillory a disabled person (for that is what he is!) for not being able to write neatly and for some spelling mistakes is a nasty and spiteful piece which reflects badly on the newspaper and the lady involved.
The secret tape-recording of the subsequent phone call smells more of an entrapment by The Sun to further their own political agenda, rather than making a truly serious political point.
This will, I suspect, backfire on both the genuine campaign to support the soldiers and on the attempts to demonstrate the general incompetence of Mr Brown. If anything this series of articles will strengthen Brown's position and gain him a substantial sympathy vote.
We all sometimes suffer from word-blindness, where you misread a word. I suppose it is a very mild sort of dyslexia, but one that tends to imprint the wrong word onto your consciousness.
Is the Chancellor Alastair, Alasdair or Alistair Darling? Why do people insist on spelling my surname with an H? At the PLI into the Eishken wind farm I read the wrong name out from the statement I wrote by myself, and made a bit of an ar$e of myself.
But to attempt to pillory a disabled person (for that is what he is!) for not being able to write neatly and for some spelling mistakes is a nasty and spiteful piece which reflects badly on the newspaper and the lady involved.
The secret tape-recording of the subsequent phone call smells more of an entrapment by The Sun to further their own political agenda, rather than making a truly serious political point.
This will, I suspect, backfire on both the genuine campaign to support the soldiers and on the attempts to demonstrate the general incompetence of Mr Brown. If anything this series of articles will strengthen Brown's position and gain him a substantial sympathy vote.
10 comments:
Hi Angus,
That is pretty well what I thought this morning when I heard the news. It is very bad form by the Scum and its reporter/editor.
As for recording trhe converstaion, I thought that if a telecon was being recorded then the person making the recording had to inform the recordee. I'm sure that some law has been broken here. It would be good to see the Scum and the "grieving" mother getting prosecuted for it.
I'm not a labouritye, I just don't like people cynically attacking another person when he genuinely tried to do the decent thing.
I'm not a Labour fanboy either and I've got to agree with 10.47, the editor of the Scum paper should be hung out to dry for using the soldiers death and the mothers pain to score a couple of cheap political points against the PM.
Put the bastard (editor) on the gallows.....
Without prejudice to the bereaved family, for whom I have every sympathy, for their loss, the rest of this is just a ridiculous and pathetic episode in the deterioration of our media.
Yes it was inept that the letter contained errors, but let us recognise that GB, (love him or hate him), is a very busy man, whose day job is running the country (for better or worse), i.e. looking after the welfare of 60 odd million people.
There are almost certainly serious problems with the war, (which need addressing) but two days of media flap requiring, God knows, how many statements, interviews and debates, is just nonsense, complete and utter nonsense.
Maybe we should go back to the days of a typed, impersonal note from the MOD.
Struck me as being a parent blindly trying to get revenge for the death of their son and finding someone to blame. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the war, why not blame the person who actually killed him?
As for Gordon - it's known that his handwriting is duff. He took the time out to write individual letters. Would she have preferred a bland typed generic standard letter with a rubber-stamped signature? As much as I don't like him, Gordon needs to be cut some slack on this one.
Bizarrely, I find myself grudgingly supporting Pa Broon. Then again, I'm used to having my name misspelt.
I think that we are all sympathising with Mssr Broon. Love him or hate him, anyone who is under a lot of pressure in the workplace has a couple of options and he chose the hard one. He could have asked his PA to type a "standard letter of condolense" to the family and I am sure that they would have got most of the spelling and names right but what option would have been the more personal and politically correct one.
I felt bad for GB yesterday, when I woke up to the news that the mother had taped a telephone conversation with him, I hoped and prayed that she hadn't been paid by the Sun for it. If she received anything then she is the person who is guilty of dehumanising and belittling her own son's death.
Think too the BBC should be criticised for displaying this story in such a prominent way.
It says little for either their editorial or political judgment.
It does not come as a surprise that "The Scum" would do this, but the worrying part is the way the rest of the media played their part, devouring each line with glee, giving the story coverage way beyond what was reasonable. The rest of our media which includes the BBC and ITV all played their part and it merely confirms how ineffective our media regulators have become.
Isn't it just that the Sun are backing the Tories at the forthcoming election?
probably - but that's not an excuse! My own feelings are that the tide has turned for GB (i vote SNP, so far, so that does NOT stand for Great Britain) I think he will probably scrape through on the sympathy vote!
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