Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was forced to apologise to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan after he spelt her son’s name wrong in a letter of condolence.

As reported by the Daily Mail the Prime Minister telephoned Jacqui Janes yesterday after learning of her distress over the handwritten letter, sent after her son Jamie, 20, of the 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, was killed by an explosion on October 5.

He assured her that he had meant no offense by his gaffe, Downing Street said. Mr Brown’s letter contained the following errors - he got the family’s surname wrong and scribbled on the name Jamie, wrote ‘you’ instead of your, Mr Brown made a further five spelling mistakes - ‘greatst‘ for greatest; ‘condolencs‘ instead of condolences; ‘you’ for your; ‘colleagus’ for colleagues; and ‘securiity‘ for security - in the letter, which was published in The Sun today.

He ended with a repetition - by writing ‘my sincere condolences’ followed by ‘Yours sincerely’. The letter was scrawled so quickly I could hardly even read it and some of the words were half-finished,’ Mrs Janes said. It seems that Mr. Brown was in such a tearing haste to send off the letter he did not went through it even once and just sent it.

Mrs Janes at first threw his letter in disgust than she re-read it later. He said, “I know words can offer little comfort.” When the words are written in such a hurry and the letter is littered with mistakes, they offer no comfort.

‘It was an insult to Jamie and all the good men and women who have died out there. How low a priority was my son that he could send me a disgraceful, hastily scrawled insult of a letter? ‘He finished by asking if there was any way he could help.
‘One thing he can do is never, ever, send a letter out like that to another dead soldier’s family. Type it or get someone to check it. And get the name right.’
Mr Brown’s latest gaffe comes after he found himself accused of neglecting to bow after he laid his wreath at the Cenotaph yesterday.