Tory Peer Raps Sun Reportage

A top brass Conservative has criticised a tabloid's "very personal" attack on the Prime Minister.

Front bench Opposition peer Pauline Neville-Jones said David Cameron would share view that the Sun had "got it wrong" this week by running a story lambasting Gordon Brown over a condolence letter.

Mr Brown had written the letter to the mother of a solider killed in Afghanistan. The woman told the Sun she felt insulted that the Prime Minister's letter allegedly contained spelling mistakes and small inaccuracies.

The article also criticised the partially sighted Prime Minister's handwriting.

Baroness Neville-Jones, the shadow defence minister, commended Mr Brown for taking the time to write to the grieving families of fallen troops.

"It shows, I think, a proper duty towards people that have laid down their life, to their families," she said.

The Sun recently aligned itself with the Tory party following 12 years of supporting Labour.

Appearing on BBC Question Time, Baroness Neville-Jones was asked if she thought her party should distance itself from the paper.

"I don't particularly like what they did with it... and I think, actually, their readers clearly didn't - and they are right. Their readers are right. They made a mistake," she said.

Mr Cameron has yet to publicly discuss the paper's coverage, but the baroness said she expected he would support her view.

"I think he would because I think the decent reaction of people is that you don't go on and on like that."

Responding to allegations of a Sun/Tory "contract" from by Lord Mandelson, the Conservative peer said: "The Sun has its own editorial line. I am quite certain that nobody in the Tory party is actually going to foster this kind of personal attack - because it did become very personal and I don't like that.

"I think we should fight our politics clean."

Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward, who defected from the Tories to join Labour, was also on the TV panel.

He said the Sun's story represented a "character assassination against the prime minister for getting the spellings wrong".

Mr Brown has since spoken to News International boss Rupert Murdoch, who owes the Sun, but would not be drawn on the content of the conversation.

"I talk to Rupert Murdoch on a number of occasions and I talked to him this week. It was a very friendly conversation," the Prime Minister told BBC Radio 4.

"I have got a great deal of respect for what he has done and I hope that he has some respect for me."

(PR/BMcC)