The mother of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan has today accused Gordon Brown of disrespecting her son's memory by misspelling their surname in a letter of condolence.

The Prime Minister also angered veterans by failing to bow his head as he laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday, The Sun claimed.

Jacqui Janes, whose son Jamie, 20, of the 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, was killed by an explosion on October 5, received a hand-written note from Mr Brown, which began: "Dear Mrs James".

Mrs Janes, 47, told the newspaper: "He couldn't even be bothered to get our family name right. That made me so angry.

"Then I saw he had scribbled out a mistake in Jamie's name.

"The very least I would expect from Gordon Brown is to get his name right.

"The letter was scrawled so quickly I could hardly even read it and some of the words were half-finished. It's just disrespectful."

A spokesman for No10 said the Prime Minister spends a great deal of time writing to bereaved families of fallen soldiers and would never knowingly misspell anyone's name.

He said: "The Prime Minister takes a great deal of time writing letters of condolences.

"The reason he personally writes to every family is to acknowledge the debt of gratitude owed by the country to those who have died to protect the people of Britain. He would never knowingly misspell anyone's name."