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Who would be Gordon Brown, pilloried after trying to console an angry mother who has no intention of being consoled after the death of her son in a controversial war?
A despairing Mr Brown fell back on the desperate assurance that he had tried to "satisfy" Jacqui Janes.Here was a classic Gordon verbal malfunction.
Tragically bereaved people do not feel satisfied. The best that can be offered is empathy. Mr Brown understandably enraged Mrs Janes by refusing until yesterday to apologise for a letter that was, by any standard, clumsy.
The Prime Minister is beginning to inspire something worse than hostility. He arouses pity as the man who can't get anything right.
When he goes to the Cenotaph, he stands accused of not bowing.
When he goes jogging at the EU summit, he is mocked for looking like most men his age look in sportswear, which is not a dead ringer for Usain Bolt.
He does a shoot with a glossy men's magazine which heavily favours David Cameron, and the result makes him look like a bloodless spectre.
John Major brooded on the way power turns to pity in his memories of the 1997 campaign, where he found himself greeted with sympathy on the doorstep - the last kindness extended to those the electorate intends to put out of its misery.
Mr Brown has a personality that does not sparkle in the spotlight, a long record as Chancellor with nowhere to hide his past misjudgments, a government suffering the fatigue of time, a recession - and now a second war which is longer and more difficult than the public was ever prepared for.
I am one of the easier people to convince that if the Coalition's military strategy can be corrected and the aims are clear, Britain is still a country which in its heart does want involvement in world affairs, rather than engage its admired armed forces solely on exercises on Salisbury Plain.
But many others differ - and senior military figures now fear the war is being lost in the country's living rooms, long before it is lost in Helmand, by the draining of belief.
The PM must surely have sensed that the autumn would bring fresh doubts over a difficult mission - and one in which the perils of leaving have to be finely balanced against the perils of staying.
He wants to run this war in a way that cannot be mistaken for his predecessor.
Because he distrusted Tony Blair's dash to glory in Iraq, he prefers to portray Afghanistan as a grim necessity, rather than something in which he invests both judgment and belief.
That means it is never entirely clear why he is in favour of it, apart from vague assurances that it is a necessity for British security, which rather invites the question as to why this is the only way of achieving that.
Mr Blair's messianic approach caused many to recoil over Iraq, not least since he made facts servant to his certainties, rather than the other way around.
When faced with the awful task of commiserating with families of the war-fallen, though, a leader has to sound as if he knows it is worth it.
To fall back on summoning up his own loss of a baby, as if it were the sole humanising thing that had happened to him, looked desperate, however genuine he feels about it.
The successful politics of practice is a mixture of high endeavor and well executed small things. Mr Brown, though, is fixated on the big picture: policy, ideas and the interplay of global forces.
It is no bad thing for a leader to have this breadth: Mr Cameron's weakness is that he appears broad but not deep and that he is too changeable and slick to be relied on.
However, projecting confidence and control is part of the job, not an optional extra. Mr Brown is constantly on the ropes because he is defined by the recession and the war.
That is not the pitch of a rounded leader seeking another term in power.
His commitment to continue reform in the public service is a diminished shell. Reassurances that he is not hostile to the aspirations of the educated middle class have dwindled.
Around him, ministers pursue their agendas and leadership hopes. The once prized central "narrative" is a mangy string of incoherent announcements.
The odd thing is, they all know this and cannot change it. My No 10 spies report a "rerun of the Stephen Carter experiment" in the fate of Simon Lewis.
Mr Lewis was imported from the private sector to sort out a communications strategy capable of taking on Andy Coulson's disciplined Central Office operation.
The signs of this in practice are far from obvious, to put it politely. Insiders say Mr Lewis finds it hard to break into the PM's infamously tight circle.
Last night, Mr Cameron was deep in hostile territory at the Guardian, sharing his views on poverty-relief and a new Tory social settlement.
A week defined by a grieving mother in the Sun on the one hand and your opponent charming the centre-Left's house journal on the other, can hardly be said to be a great communications success.
It matters because Mr Brown has a fight worth waging. Labour's position is not as bad as it could be: the party is 10 points adrift of the Opposition in the latest Populus/Times poll this week and with a possibility of economic recovery in sight that could vindicate him.
Mr Cameron, though buoyed by the expectation of victory and the swing in popularity that brings, has struggled to find the moment that clinches a confident victory.
The terms on which the Tories will inherit power and the mandate on which they will do so remain uncertain. That should be Labour's biggest strength and inspiration.
It is what keeps David Miliband, after his naughty show of leg to the EU this week, in domestic politics. The next election is lost: but not yet hopelessly so.
As John Major and Co could tell Mr Brown, there is a big difference between a 1997-style wipeout and a loss with honour and hope.
It does, however, require some heroic gusto and an avoidance of less necessary pratfalls along the way. Little things really do mean a lot.
Reader views (9)
No sympathy, no pity just hatred for a lying cheating Government that has wrecked a Country in 12 very long years.
Go now Brown, and take the rest of your odious little Ministers with you.
- Roger, Devon, 12/11/2009 08:25
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I am neither an admirer of our PM nor the Labour Party. Although, like many other British people i believe in fair play. This whole episode together with the involvement of The Sun newspaper was crass and blatantly unfair.
- John, ASCOT, 11/11/2009 19:41
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MADAM your statement of "Mr Blair's messianic approach caused many to recoil over Iraq, not least since he made facts servant to his certainties" hides a euphemism for a lie which has cost needless UK and Iraq lives. Brown and Mandelson and their Government have defined the meaning of crass while also attaching international war crimes on to a list of shameful behaviour - so the idea that a mother who has lost her young son should forgive Brown and his cohorts is so crass that only Mandelson and Brown could think to air such a crass view. Make them go and fight their silly wars
- Val Keller, London UK, 11/11/2009 15:48
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I do feel sorry for Gordon Brown but I think given the state of the correspondence he sent it would have been better had someone checked it first. Given the condition of his eye sight no one can blame him for his handwriting. Another issue in this sorry mess is the role of the Sun newspaper. Why did they feel the need to publish excerpts from a telephone conversation between the mother of the dead soldier and Gordon Brown. The morals of the media in the UK leave a nasty taste in the mouth. Or was it the mother who wanted the excerpt making public.
- Christine Livesey, County Durham, 11/11/2009 12:48
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for the first time in years i am feelin a little sorry for the P.M. i dont condone the war in iraq but find it hard to believ that it hasnt been revoked by now. my 6yr old daughter is at school at the moment learning not to be a bully or pick on people smaller than her? SHE IS 6! if a six yr old knows when intervention becomes bullying how does an entire cabinet of MP's? back to school im afraid lads!
- Scott, blackpool, lancashire, 11/11/2009 11:51
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McBroon and his boss Mandelspin have no sense of honour otherwise they would have resigned many months ago.
Other than that, good article.
- St, London, 11/11/2009 11:46
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Very thought-provoking article Miss McElvoy - Although I would say that Gormless Brown does now seem like a tired,flea-ridden nag that should really be put down to be put out of its misery.
Brown has been the architect of his own demise by stubbornly and arrogantly refusing point blank to listen to ANYONE else bar the deluded voices in his own head.
He has blundered,blustered and dithered his way throughout these last 2 disastrous years and has,like many despotic dictators, surrounded himself in his bunker with lickspittle cronies like Lord Meddleslime blowing smoke up his backside to inflate his ego.
He is an unelected,bullying,deluded and totally out-of-touch sociopath who deserves to rot in the stinking political backwaters of socialist failure.
- Anon Pc, London, UK, 11/11/2009 11:29
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Madam, you have missed the point, I am afraid to say. When British troops were sent into the dangerous Helmand province, genuine 'injun territory' as the Americans would say, the then Defence Secretary John Reid said he did not see why they should fire a single shot. In just the same way has the Labour government persistently attempted to deceive the British people over the economy, recession, recovery, immigration, society. Where previous governments, of Major, Thatcher, Callaghan, have been generally and genuinely honest with the people, the government of Blair and Brown has been the opposite.
- Marco, London, 11/11/2009 09:48
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Pity is fine when we're talking about cousin Opie who wears his underwear on the outside, but it's the last thing you want to feel when thinking about the Prime Minister of your country (inspiration and awe being among the first). This sad episode has not only re-inforced the public's image of Brown as a bumbling sociopath, it has also exposed the complete disregard he has for the Afghan war. A dangerous sentiment with the war balancing on a knife edge. And another reason he is simply not fit to lead, now or ever.
- He Has To Go Now, London, 11/11/2009 09:33
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