How one letter highlights rank hypocrisy in Labour ranks and brings the issue of Brown’s eyesight to the boil.

The Gordon Brown letter story has now dominated the news agenda for 48 hours. It led Newsnight and this morning’s papers are still awash. Traditional media logic suggests that if a story hasn’t been shut down by now then it can start to cause some serious serious problems.

Lets be clear, Gordon Brown may not have ever been fully behind his predecessor’s wars. Yes he needs to be held account for his criminal underfunding of the British Armed Forces, but it was with the best intentions that he wrote to Mrs Janes. Sometimes the best isn’t good enough though. Downing St made it clear to Nick Robinson that there were red faces and realisation that someone should have checked the letter before it went out. This goes without saying.

Whether Brown’s sloppy attitude to spelling can be used as a metaphor for his sloppy attitude to the war has a strong case. However his sloppy attitude and attention to detail, or lack thereof, can be found far and wide, not just specifically here. While The Sun has pushed this story hard and is clearly out to get Brown at all costs, the reaction from the left has been somewhat hysterical.

Firstly, when you have copies of The Sun being torn up at the podium of Labour Party Conference to the hounding cheers of a blood thirsty audience, you have to expect a little retaliation. Secondly, The Sun is a tabloid, why the shock that they are using tabloid tactics? Most of the outrage from Labour is faux and manufactured, the reasons why being examined later.

It is hard not to feel a pang of sympathy concerning legibility as it was somewhat underhand to begin by attacking Brown for his handwriting. However the fervency with which Labour supporters have sustained their attacks, even when discussion has moved on to equipment, proves that the anger is really out there. Tribal anger that The Sun is now backing the Conservatives. Labour may have laughed it off or played it down at their conference, but there is pain below the surface. It takes real desperation to attack a grieving mother but that has happened. Everyone knows that The Sun will only go for who they think are going to win, and Labour more than anyone know how accurate the paper is at gauging these things. The zeal and persistence of The Sun bashing in the last 24 hours have exposed not only the hypocrisy of Labour, but also the salt that is being poured into their already gaping wounds.

Controversially the hypocrisy of Brown’s defence, the appropriately titled having one’s cake and eating it approach, must be analysed. Any mention of Gordon’s eyesight is met with howls of derision from his supporters. Legitimate questions of whether it is affecting his work as Prime Minster are not allowed to be asked. If this is going to be the case then fine, if they believe that there is no problems there, then fine. Eyesight cannot then be used as excuse for a spectacular media disaster, if it is not allowed to be discussed on a good day. You can’t shut down discussion with outrage only to use the same topic of conversation to quell outrage elsewhere.

Less controversially and more obviously is how the letter has shown how much the loss of The Sun’s support has hurt Labour’s moral at the rank and file level. Labour went out of their way to garner the support of The Sun. It took Campbell flights around the world to kneel at the altar of Murdoch, to beg, to promise and to change in order to have that News International stamp of approval. A cursory glance through the months before the 97 election section of Campbell's diaries will show you how hard they worked for it and how much it meant to them when their goal was achieved. So the pretence that they are not bothered is hard to buy, especilly given Labour's reaction to this story. There is real anger out there that the Sun has abandoned this decaying government, its last loyal supporters are jumping on this issue in order to bash The Sun. If it had been any other newspaper or media outlet, bar the Mail, then the negative reaction whipped up would not have been anywhere near the same scale.

For Labour to attack The Sun for being partisan and actively campaigning to have the government removed is as hypocritical as it is pathetic. The Sun went about systematically painting the last Conservative government as driven by sleaze. One lefty talking head even had the audacity to suggest on Sky News yesterday that it was unhealthy to our democracy to have a newspaper undermining the government to such an extreme level. It’s stories like this that prove just how desperate the Labour party is right now.

The Sun embarked on sustained attack during the cash-for-questions scandal. Grubby fivers and twenties in brown envelopes passed under sleazy tables became emblematic of the entire government. New Labour should be careful, they have taken sleaze to a whole new level, whether it be from buying honours to buying laws. The scale of the dirty money that has tainted this government far eclipses anything the Tories got up to in the nineties. While sleaze in any sense of the word must be stamped out, it is easy to see why the Labour are rattled. The Sun has only been against them for a couple of months and already they can see the havoc it can reap.

There are still two hundred days to go, two hundred more Sun front pages. No wonder Labour, and the likes of Alistair Campbell are spooked. They played with the dark arts once and they certainly don’t like the taste of their own medicine that they have received so far.