Does Gordon deserve sympathy for his spelling?

Everyone makes mistakes.

So I understand the sympathy for Gordon Brown that forms a major strand of the comments on The Times website.

In any case, newspapers, which are prone to misspelling names, should be careful about being too critical.

One of the main points made in Mr Brown's defence, however, benefits from a further piece of information.

Mr Brown, argue his defenders, was good to write in the first place. Had he not troubled to send a handwritten missive, he would not have made the mistake.

Yet sending handwritten letters of such a kind is standard practice. All Prime Ministers have done it, at least since Mrs Thatcher and the Falklands.