For those who have missed the story, we discovered yesterday that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, personally writes a letter of condolence to the families of all those soldiers who die in combat. A generous and caring act you’d think, particularly in the past many grieving families would have merely received a type-written letter from the service concerned. Apparently however, the letter received by mother of serviceman Jamie Janes last week was an ‘insult‘ to her son’s memory as the PM’s handwriting leaves something to be desired. Gordon Brown as is well reported does suffer with problems with his eyesight which affects his handwriting. The fact that he still wanted to write personally to the families of servicemen should be to his credit, not used to criticize him.

Now, before I go any further, Mrs Janes has my every sympathy and nothing that anyone can say is going to mitigate her sadness at the loss of her son. When you are grieving there is a natural instinct to try and find someone to blame but it’s normally left to your friends and relations to comfort you, not for your statements to be broadcast across the nation. Mrs Janes is clearly very upset and angry, but it does neither her, her son, or the rest of the country any benefit to base policies on the feelings of one upset woman. To exploit her grief to sell newspapers and to attack the Prime Minister is, in my opinion, low, even by the standards of the Sun. To then extend the story over two days and take an illegally recorded telephone conversation and host it on their website is cynical and manipulative in the extreme.

Servicemen enter the armed forces knowing that there is a risk of injury or death in what they do. The fact that they still sign-up willingly to serve is to their great credit, but sadly in any war there will always be casualties. It does seem in this particular case that Guardsman Janes was picked up by a helicopter, but died on the way to hospital from his wounds. Tragic, but it does seem that in this particular case, all that could have been done, was done.

I am also disappointed that Gordon Brown feels that he has to schedule an enquiry to investigate the circumstances around Guardsman Janes’ death. Unless this is routinely done for the deaths of any British servicemen, scheduling one to try and deflect the attentions of the Sun is yet another knee-jerk reaction. Representational democracy exists to provide a stabilizing influence on the fickle wishes of the mob. If all they do is respond to the demagoguery of the tabloid press, then you wonder why there are there at all.

So, what was the telling issue of the day today?  The global economic meltdown?  The continuing conflicts in Iraq?  Matters in Israel?  No, apparently how old the Venetian artist Titian was when he died in 1576.

Gordon Brown mentioned the artist in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month

I’m reminded of the story of Titian, who’s the great painter who reached the age of 90, finished the last of his nearly 100 brilliant paintings, and he said at the end of it, ‘I’m finally beginning to learn how to paint,’ and that is where we are.”

Ever alert to the vital issues of the day, the opposition Conservative leader David Cameron, leapt on this statement

The Prime Minister never gets his facts right.  He told us the other day he was like Titian aged 90.  The fact is Titian died at 86

Of course, following that statement, the media rushes off to Wikipedia, the one reliable source of all information on the Internet, to find out the facts.  Once there, they find that according to the page, David Cameron is correct, but the entry has also been recently updated.  Updated that day in fact, to change his date of death to match Cameron’s statement.  And you thought it was only students who did that kind of thing?

It’s gets more interesting though, if you do an RIPE lookup on the address which made the change, where does it go?

inetnum: 194.203.158.96 – 194.203.158.111
netname: CONSCENT02
descr: Conservative Central Office

Oopsie. Rumbled!

Conservative Central office have now owned up blaming an ‘over-eager member of staff‘ but that’s not really the point.  Who cares when Titian died?  The whole thing trivialises the business of politics, but sadly it seems to be reflective of what MPs think matters.  Incidentally, I’m still pointing an accusing finger at the media for relying on Wikipedia again for information rather than doing real research.

As an aside, it is briefly diverting to check what else their ‘over-eager member of staff‘ has seen fit to change on Wikipedia:  (assuming that the IP address was always associated with Conservative Central Office of course)

• They’re keen that we know the Conservative Party is the oldest party in the World, not just in the UK.
• That the collective term for fingerpuppets is a fistful
• ..and for staples it’s a troop
• They really don’t like Jamie Cann’s work in Ipswich
• That orange kinda rhymes with lozenge

and

• That Warthogs smell of poo

Oh, in case you were wondering, no-one seems to know for sure how old Titian was when he died, so the whole thing is anyone’s guess anyway.