Members of their families are born, grow up and die like all mortal beings but being part of families in the public spotlight, they normally live their lives in the gaze of the tabloids and their every waking (and sometimes nocturnal) moves are monitored and reported upon.
It was with great sadness then that David Cameron’s disabled son, Ivan, died last night.
When Cameron came to public prominence a few years ago, after taking over the leadership, of course we were introduced to his family. There was his wife, Samantha and his children, Nancy, Arthur and Ivan. There was the ‘green’ Cameron travelling to ‘work’ by bicycle but followed by a government Jaguar. The corporate history of Cameron was laid bare, detailing the time when he worked in television and was apparently a complete rotweiller, dealing with the press like they were pond life. There was the time when, in government, he was part of the treasury when UK Plc almost became broke due to the currency crisis (I remember it well as my mortgage went up to a staggering 15 percent) but all that has disappeared into the mists of time as he has become the supposed saviour of the UK at the next election.
Now politicians of all shapes and sizes usually, and unashamedly, use their families as a marketing tool. It’s good for Joe Public to see that the guy running the country has the same problems that they do and in the past we’ve had an overdose of Tony Blair shoving his family into the spotlight in order to garner public support. We’ve had them on Xmas cards. We’ve had the documentaries. We’ve unfortunately had Ewan Blair puking up in London after coming out of a club and prior to that we had John Major’s son marrying a model, who dumped him after his father lost the ‘top job’. All normal, family life.
But Cameron was different. People knew that his eldest son was severely disabled and apart from a few glances inside the family home as Cameron tried to embrace the internet age (home web cams), little was known of Ivan’s condition.
Last night he became ill and died within a relatively short time of being admitted to hospital. He suffered from ‘severe cerebral palsy and severe epilepsy’.
This morning, I’m afraid to say that when I switched the TV on there was a split picture of Cameron with Ivan (see picture above), and the plane crash at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. I chose to watch the report on the airline crash unaware of the story about Ivan. It was only when having lunch with my mate Ashley that I learned of the sad news.
Prime Minister’s questions, where Gordon Brown and David Cameron cross swords, was rightly cancelled today, but not before Brown issued this heartfelt statement about Ivan’s death……
"I know that in an all too brief life, he brought joy to all those around him and I know also that for all the days of his life, he was surrounded by his family's love. Every child is precious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure. Politics can sometimes divide us. But there is a common human bond that unites us in sympathy and compassion at times of trial and in support for each other at times of grief. The thoughts and prayers of the whole country are with David, Samantha and their family."
Gordon Brown unfortunately knows the grief of losing a child. He and his wife, Sarah, lost their first born, a little girl, Jennifer Jane, 10 days after she was born.
It’s not often that Brown and Cameron are on the same wavelength but yesterday they would be bound together in grief.
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