Will the latest letter row help or hinder Brown?

So more than one family has had an extended delay before receiving a letter of condolence from the prime minister and he is in for another round of attacks on this. We should get more details on this soon.

Interestingly, when I was talking around yesterday to Brown aides and Labour MPs about the PM’s performance in PMQs and Labour’s slight narrowing of the poll gap with the Tories, I was told repeatedly that Labour folk felt one key moment in changing voters’ views.

“Opening the door” metaphorically to Gordon Brown was what voters felt was the over the top attacks on Gordon Brown over his letter of condolence with uncorrected mistakes in it.

They felt the coverage seemed to trigger something like sympathy and a re-examination of the PM for some voters.

Will the latest round of stories have a similar impact, an opposite one (incompetence etc) or none at all (here we go again)?