Hilarie: Sun’s slur campaign will be a vote winner for Brown

Nov 14 2009 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

UNTIL this week I had no strong feelings either way about our PM.

He’s always seemed perfectly acceptable in a sort of John Major personality-lacking way although I did have doubts over his ability to make the transition from the man with the nation’s cheque book to being the ultimate Man-in-Charge.

But overnight, thanks to The Sun, I have become a Gordon Brown supporter. Their intended smear campaign over THAT letter will, I believe, net him more votes than anything their journalists could have written when the newspaper was a Labour supporter. Which would be funny if the subject matter of the letter was not so serious.

My own Man-in-Charge disapproves of me adding my voice to the ‘controversy’ on this issue.

“If I was you,” he said when I raised the matter over dinner, “I’d just shut up about it. The whole thing has been blown completely out of proportion.”

And, of course, he’s completely right. Which is exactly why I am going to write about it.

Because I think that those of us who feel Gordon is getting a rough deal should attempt to redress the balance.

It would appear our PM is guilty of nothing more than having bad handwriting. But for that crime he has been accused of being ‘bloody shameful’ and having an ‘underlying disregard for the military’.

Yes, the letter to bereaved mother Jacqui Janes, expressing sorrow over the loss of her son Jamie, was a mess. It was written in a shambolic fashion and looked as if spider with dysentery had crawled across the pages.

I used to sit next to a boy at primary school who wrote like that. He had to attend after-school lessons to improve his handwriting and after four years the teacher gave up.

His preferred style was to curl his hand around the pen so that the nib protruded from his fist, pointing towards his ink-stained grey jumper. He probably became a doctor.

Our PM is, apparently, renowned for his terrible handwriting but he’s by no means alone. My own once-copperplate hand is now so scratty that I have trouble reading it back myself. Even when I’m trying to write neatly it no longer looks neat. The Man-in-Charge uses typical medical scrawl. He once received a reply to something he’d signed using the letters after his name addressed to Mr Stelfox-Mucus, which should have read Mr Stelfox MRCVS (Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons).

How we laughed, as they say.

The letter of condolence that Mr Brown wrote to Mrs Janes was, I truly believe, a heartfelt message of sympathy from an intrinsically decent person – someone who knows what it is like to lose a child and wanted to do the right thing. Also, let’s not forget, by someone who is partially sighted. And someone who is kept pretty busy running the country and for whom time is exceedingly precious.

Perhaps Mrs Janes would have been happier receiving a typed letter, written by a minion and signed by Mr Brown. But the PM was aiming for the personal touch. His only real mistake was that he didn’t append a line at the end saying ‘please forgive my untidy handwriting.’

There is probably not a person in the land who does not sympathise with Mrs Janes. It’s doubly tragic that her grief has been exploited by The Sun for its own purposes. By blowing this story up into something it’s not, The Sun has encouraged her to rail and rant at Mr Brown and his Government. She has found a focus for her grief that, in the end, will bring her no comfort and only serves to temporarily distract from the awfulness of her loss.

This week many of us have seen Mr Brown through newly-opened eyes. He has behaved with dignity and yet is obviously distressed. “I have telephoned Jacqui Janes to apologise for any unintended mistake in the letter,” he said, earlier this week. “To all other families whom I have written to I can only apologise if my handwriting is difficult to read. I have at all times acted in good faith, seeking to do the right thing.”

You know what. This is one of those rare occasions when it’s possible to believe every word a politician says. And for that I have a growing respect for our PM.