Widespread revulsion to The Sun’s political campaign – using a dead mother’s grief to campaign against Labour – was apparent everywhere.

Embarrasingly for the paper, most of the comments underneath the initial article were supportive of Brown. Some even attacked the mother for using her son’s death for political point scoring.

This led the Sun to close comments in a follow-up article in case it faced a bigger backlash from its own readers.

On Twitter, Vincent Moss confirmed:

Newspaper attacks on Brown’s letter/eyesight now starting to backfire badly even among anti-Labour voters, according to my polling expert.

RowanDavies added:

Beginning to think the Sun has dropped a bollock on this Jamie Janes business. Comments on Mumsnet are running 15-1 in GB’s favour.

Behind the scenes there were more examples of back-tracking.

The Guardian reported Rupert Murdoch saying he regretted his editors (note the plural) had “turned very much against Gordon Brown”.

Yesterday, even the newspaper’s former political editor George Pascoe-Watson admitted…

that Brown “cares passionately about the care of our troops”, and said that there was “a danger that public opinion could go against The Sun”.

Paul Waugh at the Standard confirmed the same:

What’s not in doubt is the danger that The Sun runs in overplaying its hand on the whole affair. News websites are full of comments from the public pointing out that while Mr Brown may have blundered, his sincerity is not in doubt in writing letters to the families of the fallen.

Today, the Daily Mirror leapt to the PM’s defence.

Even The Sun today has started back-tracking, accepting that the PM’s letter was “well-meaning”.

Political Scrapbook says the Sun had form for putting words into people’s mouths, illustrating how the paper used a 7/7 victim to push for harsher terrorism legislation.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   :: Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown http://bit.ly/2maPnP

2. Andreas Paterson

   RT @libcon: Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown http://bit.ly/2maPnP <- And so it damn well should

3. Patrick Daykin

   RT @libcon: :: Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown http://bit.ly/2maPnP

4. Nicholas Stewart

   #LiberalConspiracy Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown http://tinyurl.com/ylfb22x

5. Tweets that mention Liberal Conspiracy » Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown -- Topsy.com

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Liberal Conspiracy, Andreas Paterson. Andreas Paterson said: RT @libcon: Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown http://bit.ly/2maPnP <- And so it damn well should [...]

6. warrenmorgan

   RT Liberal Conspiracy » Sun faces backlash on campaign against Brown http://bit.ly/2maPnP Good, Sun's conduct has been shameful

7. Philip Cane

   The Sun backlash continues with now even more sympathy for Brown at the expense of the paper, editors and News Corp. http://j.mp/4lurAQ

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