I am about to post on this at my place and just came here to see if you guys had heard yet. I see I’ve been beaten to it. Thanks, Unity.

No matter what I think of David Cameron, no parent deserves to lose a child. I have CP and so when I hear that anyone has died of it, I’m always hit hard. My thoughts are with David Cameron and his wife today.

The Prime Minister has issued this statement…
Sarah and I were very saddened to hear of the death of Ivan and we have sent our condolences to David and Samantha. The death of a child is a loss no parent should have to bear. I know Ivan was a child who brought joy to all those who knew him and his was a life surrounded by love. The thoughts and prayers of the whole country are with David, Samantha and their family.

Classy Gordon , very classy…

Newmania, I sincerely hope the last line of your post is not intended to be sarcastic. Because how anyone can be sarcastic about a tribute to any human being is far beyond me.

A subject very close to Gordon Brown’s heart I would imagine ?

Newmania, have you no sense of decency?

Is this Newmania guy for real? Disgusting comment. The death of a child is indeed something no parent should have to bear, and if one of your own kids has died you will realise that better than most.

By drawing attention to the death of his own child Mr. Brown has made a mistake .You can huff and puff all you like its damn clear what he is up to and I am not be alone in thinking the manner of his condolence hits a very false note indeed .Lets be kind and say it was misjudged if you like .

Newmania, you are 100% wrong on this one. It’s not a secret that Brown has lost a child too and it’s only natural that one might allude to one’s own tragedy when conforting another on theirs: and even then, he does it pretty bloody inplicitly. When a friend of my recently lost a loved one I alluded to my own experience of loss when I was conforting them, in order to display that I was able to empathise.

But regardless of all of that, I’m not even sure if Brown was alluding particuarly and anyway, all this kind of stuff is above the level of petty debate. Which I have now contributed to.

Whatever our political stripe, we all sympathise with David and his family at their loss.

Gordon brown’s comments are not as ‘misjudged’ as your, Newmania.

I’ll bet not a day goes by when Brown does not think about what happened to his child.

Sadly, David Cameron and his family must endure the same burden.

Perhaps there will be more of a connection between them because of these shared experiences ?

It certainly struck me that the same terrible tragedy of the loss of a child should have struck the Leader of the Opposition as well as the Prime Minister. Neither family will ever quite recover from this, I am sure, and I have nothing but sympathy for the Cameron family at this terrible time.

Please let’s ignore newmania’s tactless contribution.

We don’t want *this* thread to descend into the usual flame-war.

Newmania’s right in suggesting he’s not alone with his warped line of thinking; on the Guido Fawkes website there’s no shortage of shameless, hate-filled individuals laying into the Prime Minister and even Mr Cameron himself.

One hopes they never have to suffer such a tragedy, such a terrible, heartbreaking blow as the loss of one so young.

Unity, well said and hear here.

Thanks for this Unity, and I second Aaron’s suggestion.

By drawing attention to the death of his own child Mr. Brown has made a mistake.

Not at all, Newmania.

Given that Brown and Cameron quite famously harbour a mutual dislike of each other, his oblique reference to his own past loss stands as something of an olive branch offered at what is a difficult time for the Cameron family.

It’s a very human, and quite dignified response on Brown’s part, and nothing more, and it altogether a shame that anyone could consider trying to score points in circumstances when common decency dictates a cessational of the usual hostilities.

He said it so as to include himself in any pity going Unity and if you think Brown does not make that sort of calculation you are a vast deal more stupid than I think you are . Furthermore material relating to what you would call the slightly late termination of poor little Jennifer has previously been released at , shall we say , convenient times at least so it has been alleged in the National Press

Cameron is not himself innocent in all this either . George Walden I recall especially was pig sick and disgusted when the subject of Ivan was first projected into the political arena ..

I am a parent myself and I have had enough of the whole thing . Think what you want I call it as I see it .

Newmania, you really are a total prick.

Newmania – please, just stop digging.

…”the slightly late termination”? You’re worse than I thought. Hang your head in shame.

No wonder you choose to be anonymous; God alone knows what your children would make of you were they made aware of the bile you dissemble.

What political capital could Gordon Brown possibly gain, Newmania ?

Don’t forget Brown’s other child has cystic fibrosis – I’m sure the death of 6 year old Ivan Cameron has genuinely affected him.

Or are you claiming that our politicians so cynical nowadays that they will use any form of leverage, even the premature death their own children to score a few cheap points ?

I think every public act (and quite a few private ones) by politicians has a strategic element. But Newmania’s drawing attention to that is also a strategic move, and a bad one at that:)

You’re a bit of a dick, aren’t you Newmania?

Especially since you managed to twist this truism;

The death of a child is a loss no parent should have to bear.

Into a godless conspiracy to exploit the situation.

Perhaps the European Union was involved somehow?

I concur with (1) and (17).

Alright alright , I wish I had kept my thoughts to myself now .

Sorry

“Perhaps the European Union was involved somehow?”

I blame the BBC. And the gays, mustn’t forget them.

Newmania #24,

Okay. Appreciated.

Moving on…

Unity – Thanks for posting this on behalf of all associated with the website.

(I agree with Aaron and others that this thread is not the right place to have a political argument, so am glad to see Newmania now accepts that this seems to be the general view of most of us).

RIP Ivan, thanks for posting this Unity.

Good post, Unity.

Can we get Newmania banned from here? His contributions are rarely helpful.

I don’t get why people don’t just ignore unhelpful “contributions” myself.

* shrug *

And yes, Unity, so say we all.

I have a lot of sympathy with that view cabalamat. Newmania has never really made any positive or intelligent contribution to the site. But other than his frothing at the mouth gibberings about the BBC, lefties, ZaNuLieBore and the occasional ad-hominem at me, he’s rarely abusive. So I’d prefer if we didn’t ban him but simply ignored him like he deserves to be. On the occasion he says stupid things I just disemvowel him.

@30: I don’t get why people don’t just ignore unhelpful “contributions” myself.

Once upon a time, before blogging was invented, and when most Internet use was with a text-based interface, there was this thing called “Usenet” (which still exists but hardly anyone uses anymore).

Anyway one of the good things about usenet was that most software had a feature called “killfiles” where you could configure it so that any contribution from a particular person is ignored by your software and not brought to your intention.

Progress, don’t you just love it.

Anyway one of the good things about usenet was that most software had a feature called “killfiles” where you could configure it so that any contribution from a particular person is ignored by your software and not brought to your intention.

I seem to think there is a plugin that does that.

@33 Aaron: I seem to think there is a plugin that does that

Do you mean a WordPress plugin? If so, since that’s implemented on the server, won’t it just affect one particular blog?