Liberal newspaper apologizes for editorial stating David Cameron felt only ‘privileged pain’ over death of his 6-year-old disabled son

“The original version of this editorial posted online fell far short of our standards. It has now been amended, and we apologize completely,” the note said.

However, screenshots of the original paragraph were shared on Twitter: “Mr. Cameron has known pain and failure in his life but it has always been limited failure and privileged pain. The miseries of boarding school at seven are entirely real and for some people emotionally crippling but they come with an assurance that only important people can suffer that way. Even his experience of the [National Health Service], which looked after his severely disabled son, has been that of the better functioning and better funded parts of the system. Had he been forced to wrestle with the understaffed and overmanaged hospitals of much of England, or had he been trying to get the system to look after a dying parent rather than a dying child, he might have understood a little of the damage that his policies have done.”

Cameron’s son, Ivan, died at St. Mary’s Hospital in London in 2009. The 6-year-old suffered from severe epilepsy and could not talk.

The Guardian’s editorial was written in response to Cameron’s memoir, For the Record, which will be published Thursday. Cameron, 52, served as prime minister from 2010 to 2016.

The editorial elicited condemnation from Chancellor Sajid Javid, a conservative, and Member of Parliament Angela Smith, a liberal Democrat. Javid called the editorial a “shameful thing to read” that “lacked in empathy.” Smith said it was “entirely inappropriate.” “I don’t believe in the politics of class warfare,” she said, according to the BBC.