Brown Answers US Health Attack on Twitter

When a few Republicans called Britain's National Health Service "evil" and "Orwellian," the UK's Twitter users erupted. The hashtag #welovetheNHS has been trending for days now, at one point crashing the site. Yesterday the campaign got a high-profile supporter: Gordon Brown, who tweeted: "NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there."

While the prime minister is not a frequent Twitter user, his wife, Sarah Brown, is a keen microblogger with more than half a million followers. She followed his tweet with her own: "#welovetheNHS – more than words can say." The Browns have a long personal history with the health service. Gordon nearly went blind as a teenager but had one eye saved by NHS doctors, and the couple have praised NHS for its support after the death of their first child.
(More Gordon Brown stories.)