As regular readers will know, I'm up there with the best - worst? - of them when it comes to our awful excuse of a PM. I wrote, when the received wisdom was that he was a political giant who would put the show-pony Blair in his place, that he was over-rated, a liar, and a man barely fit for the Cabinet.

But I have to say I find the row today over his mis-spelled letter to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to be pretty wretched. Mr Brown has the lost the sight in one eye and has, as is surely well known, truly dreadful handwriting. I find it inconceivable that he meant anything other than to show true, heartfelt respect to Mrs Janes and to offer his genuine condolences. Yes, he made a spelling mistake. But he sat at his desk and wrote the letter himself.

I cannot imagine the feelings that must be engendered by sending men into battle; Mr Brown must have that sense of responsibility hanging over him with every death. And much as I despise him in almost every respect as PM, I cannot join the hue and cry in this instance. To accuse him of callousness and indifference towards Mrs Janes seems to me to be unfair and, frankly, below the belt.