Gordon Brown got the name of fallen soldier’s mom wrong

Gordon Brown’s spelling mistakes dragged him into trouble.

He not only got the name wrong but also committed several spelling mistakes. Here’s an excerpt from The Sun.

SPELLED Jamie incorrectly and then corrected it by scrawling over the last letter.

COMMITTED four other spelling mistakes: Greatst for greatest, condolencs for condolences, you instead of your, and colleagus for colleagues.

He also wrote the letter “i” incorrectly 18 times – mostly by leaving the dots off them but once by using two in “security”.

And he ended with a repetition – writing “my sincere condolences” and then signing off “Yours sincerely”.

As people are taking sides on Mr. Brown or Mrs. Janes, I’m wondering how this story made its way to the media at the very beginning.

Did Mrs. Jones approached The Sun in the first place? If she was extremely irritated, I don’t think she would be “calm” enough to think of talking to media and getting media to criticise the prime minister; or

did she complain to some friends or relatives who, intentionally or unintentionally, mentioned this to the media; or

some genius in The Sun suddenly sensed there could be something wrong with Gordon Brown’s writing and contacted Mrs. Janes?

I have no idea. But I agree with most people that it was rude for Gordon Brown to write both names wrong.

A few days ago when I was trying to get interviews for my TV assignment, I made a lot of phone calls. I remembered when I called Department of Health, one of their staffs refused to put me through to the person to whom I want to talk; instead, she gave me this person’s name and email address, and asked me to send email.

When I wrote the email, I worried that I might have written her name wrong. I just heard it on the telephone. So I started like this:

Dear Ms. Franca (I’m sorry if I wrote your name wrong),

I fully understand Mrs. Janes getting mad at Gordon Brown for spelling her name incorrectly and correcting his fallen son’s name in his letter instead of writing a new one.

However, she’s gone absolutely too far to record her conversation with the prime minister the next day when Gordon Brown called to say sorry, AND give to The Sun for publish. She lost my backup immediately.

It appeared to me that everything happened had been directed by The Sun. This was really ugly.

I want to ask Mrs Jones: Mam, did you think of you son when you did this?