World / Gordon Brown Lost Contact Lens Delays Brown Speech British PM, already blind in one eye, may be losing sight in other By Jason Farago, Newser Staff Posted Mar 10, 2009 5:00 AM CDT Copied Gordon Brown addresses the Scottish Labour Party conference in Dundee, Scotland, Friday March 6, 2009. The speech was delayed after the PM flushed a contact lens down the sink. (AP Photo/Danny Lawson-pa) Gordon Brown was forced to delay a speech to a Labour Party conference last week after he accidentally washed a contact lens down the sink, reports the Times of London. The British PM had no extra pair, and a staff worker had to detach the pipe beneath the sink to retrieve the lens. Brown is blind in one eye from a teenage rugby accident, and rumored to be having vision issues in his other. (More Gordon Brown stories.) Report an error