Oh No Mr. Brown

As you have all probably heard, Gordon Brown was in Rochdale today and he met a lady named Gillian Duffy. Mrs Duffy seemed a nice enough person, the archetypal northern old dear. After speaking with Brown, well, dictating to him for four minutes Mr. Brown made his excuses and left. Unfortunately for him his microphone was still switched on and Sky news heard the whole thing. As the car pulled away we could hear our prime minister saying to his aids that ‘that was a disaster’ when questioned further he referred to the lady as a ‘bigoted woman’. Sky news went into overdrive for the following hour, and it is probably still going on, they replayed the clip over and over again.

I feel sorry for Gordon as it was a mistake that he could not have gotten away with. It was at an unguarded moment when he thought he was safe in his car, away from the prying eyes and ears of the press. How many of us have said something like that about someone we have just met? All of us I would guess.

Sky news should have turned off the feed from Browns microphone as soon as the interview was over. If it was Cameron they probably would have, but as objective as sky news claim to be, they are still owned by a certain Australian millionaire media monopoliser who supports the Tories.

It will be very interesting to see the front pages of the tabloids tomorrow. The sun will go for something like ‘Brown in Bigot blunder’ and then dedicate the first 5 pages to the relative ‘non-story’. The Labour supporting Mirror will probably focus on his apology to the lady and get a picture of the two of them smiling for the cameras.

I have listened to the interview that Brown gave to Duffy and I have to say, she didn’t really seem bigoted and none of her comments could be deemed as bigotry but she did appear have the fear, that a lot of old people have, against the notion of ‘the other’.

What needs to be focused on is what Brown said to her in response. He also said it in the televised debates. That over a million Europeans have arrived in this country in the last couple of years, but over a million Brits have also left to go and live in Europe.

During the three campaigns we seem to have gotten too hung up on the personality of the candidates. On the gaffs and their wives. The election is, by definition, a popularity contest. But the popularity should be based on policies. Not on isolated incidents such as this one today.