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Gordon Brown’s letter to Jacqui Janes
Posted by Tory Rascal (@toryrascal)
Tuesday, 10th November 2009
I’ve served in Afghanistan and spoken to people there who complained about lack of equipment. Yesterday I spoke to a child whose dad lost a leg in Afghanistan. As an RAF officer, I shared in the grief we all felt when a Nimrod blew up, needlessly, due to budgetary cuts and contractual laziness. I went through my initial officer training with the first British servicewoman to die in Iraq. I’ve seen my Service’s esprit di corps shattered by relentless cuts from a Government that seems to care not one jot for what binds and motivates those of us who serve. I’ve flown around the world and within Afghanistan on creaking, decrepit aircraft, whose replacements are not only long overdue but won’t even be owned by the Crown.
I’ve served in Afghanistan only once, and (despite an initial close shave) I came away unscathed. Others have served many more times than I have, knowing that they might not return. Some, of course, never did return – others did, but with life-changing injuries. I care very deeply about those things – and I care that we have a Government that has persistently marginalised the Forces, sacking soldiers, sailors and airmen even as we fought two wars, and refusing to buy body armour for political reasons.
Forgive me, then, if I put the ’scandal’ over Gordon Brown’s letter to Jacqui Janes into this perspective: the death of Guardsman Jamie Janes is a terrible tragedy, and Gordon Brown – whatever you might think about his policies – was right to send a handwritten letter of condolence to the soldier’s mother. The spelling mistakes in that letter, as undoubtedly offensive Mrs Janes found them, do not indicate Gordon Brown’s insensitivity. Carelessness, slapdash hastiness, poor judgment, probably bad briefing from his aides … maybe. But insensitivity? No. That the Prime Minister wrote the letter at all is, I think, something we should take no issue with. In this case, Brown’s errors may have unintentionally offended a grieving mother, but I’m sure that in many other cases it brings at least a modicum of comfort to the families of the deceased to know that the Prime Minister has taken time out of his busy day to write yet another letter of condolence, knowing deep in his heart that the recipients will probably be blaming him for their loss. Blame Brown’s aides, the people who are supposed to check his dense scrawl for errors – but the man himself, I am sure, acted entirely in good faith.
My fear is that the weight given to this issue trivialises Labour’s appalling mismanagement of the Armed Forces. A few misspelled words are nothing compared with the many people who have died because of the Prime Minister’s stinginess. To exploit a grieving mother’s understandable rage at those spelling mistakes to boost newspaper sales and make a political point … well, that strikes me as being far worse than Gordon Brown’s mistakes.
I don’t like Gordon Brown, but the Sun’s unseemly campaign is both ill-judged and deeply unfair to him. The Sun has a good record for supporting the Armed Forces over kit deficiencies, and it’s a shame that it’s stooped to this.
Now, can we talk about real issues, please?
More Posts by Tory Rascal (@toryrascal)
- Labour’s future defence cuts – inevitable and shameful
- Labour’s military shame – defence cuts and incompetence
- Pre-budget report 2009 – two predictions
- Prisoners’ votes – ECHR wrong about rights
- Prime Minister’s Questions – Hizb ut Tahrir and Balls’s balls-up
- The Queen’s Speech
- Labour MP: Mandelson is briefing against Gordon Brown
- Nick Griffin on Question Time – the verdict
- Nick Griffin on Question Time – Unite Against Fascism’s shame
- Prime Minister’s Questions – another ‘la la la’ affair
