Invicta: what a terrible choice of poem - Matthew Parris

Invictus, (the poem that Gordon Brown says he finds strength in) was chosen by Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, as his only statement before his judicial execution in 2001. The mass-murderer had killed 168 innocent people by collapsing an office block on to them. At his execution McVeigh passed a handwritten copy of Invictus to his warden, then went to his death in silence. The truth to which McVeigh’s and Mr Brown’s chosen verse points this reader is that, although we cannot win by an act of will alone, nobody can deny us the right, by an act of will alone, to lose.

Less sensationally than McVeigh, Mr Brown now looks set to demonstrate this.

* Lies defeat, retirement from politics and a lucrative career working for multinationals.