People campaigning for Labour had already described Brown as "cyanide on the doorstep," before this little slip up...Brown 'mortified' by bigot slur
Gordon Brown has said he is "mortified" after being caught on microphone describing a pensioner he had just spoken to as a "bigoted woman".
Gillian Duffy, 65, had challenged him on issues including immigration.
As he got into his car, he was still wearing a broadcast microphone and was heard to say "that was a disaster".
Mr Brown later went to Mrs Duffy's house in Rochdale to apologise and sent an e-mail to Labour activists to say he "profoundly" regretted his comments.
After spending more than 40 minutes talking to Mrs Duffy, the prime minister said: "If you like, I'm a penitent sinner. Sometimes you say things you don't mean to say, sometimes you say things by mistake and sometimes when you say things you'll want to correct them very quickly.
"I wanted to come here and say to Gillian that I was sorry, I had made a mistake, but also to say I understood the concerns she was bringing to me and I had simply misunderstood some of the words she had used."
He had already phoned Mrs Duffy to apologise after the tape was played to him during a BBC Radio 2 interview.
After listening to the recording, with his forehead resting on his hand, he said: "I do apologise if I've said anything that has been hurtful."
The comments were made after the
which ended with him complimenting her and her family.
As he went to get into his car, Mr Brown told her: "Very nice to meet you, very nice to meet you."
But off camera, and not realising he still had a Sky News microphone pinned to his shirt, he was heard to tell an aide: "That was a disaster - they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous..."
Asked what she had said, he is heard to reply: "Ugh everything! She's just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean it's just ridiculous. I don't know why Sue brought her up towards me."
Mrs Duffy said after hearing of Mr Brown's comments: "I'm very upset. He's an educated person. Why has he come out with words like that?
"He's supposed to be leading the country and he's calling an ordinary woman who's come up and asked questions that most people would ask him... It's going to be tax, tax, tax for another 20 years to get out of this national debt, and he's calling me a bigot."
Mrs Duffy, a widow who has a daughter and two grandchildren, said she used to work with disabled children for Rochdale council before she retired and earlier told reporters she was a lifelong Labour voter.
Mrs Duffy has said she will not be making any comment following Mr Brown's visit and face-to-face apology but it has emerged that she is being represented by the Bell Pottinger public relations firm.
The BBC's Political Correspondent Iain Watson, in Rochdale, said this raised the possibility of potentially damaging stories appearing in Thursday's newspapers about the encounter at a time when Labour wanted to shift the focus to the economy ahead of the final prime ministerial debate.
Reacting to the day's events, Mrs Duffy's nephew said the prime minister had made a "big mistake".
"It's a massive gaffe isn't it," Andrew Duffy said. "What can you say? He's made a fool of himself really."
But Mr Duffy said Mr Brown had apologised and he did not think the incident was a "big thing really".
Speaking on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show, Mr Brown said he would never put himself "in a position where I would want to say anything like that about a woman I'd met".
He added: "I blame myself for what is done, but you've got to remember that this was me being helpful to the broadcasters, with my microphone on, rushing into the car because I had to get to another appointment and they have chosen to play my private conversation."
Later still Mr Brown made a fuller public apology to Labour Party members, acknowledging the incident had "dominated" the news and could impact on their campaigning.
He said: "I am under no illusions as to how much scorn some in the media will want to heap upon me in the days ahead."
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said it was a disaster for the prime minister because it showed the gap between his public and private face.
"For those of us who have known Gordon Brown for many years, what we have seen is no huge surprise. He has got better and better at handling himself in public, but quite often he flares up in private, expresses frustration," he said.
He said it was impossible to say what impact the incident would have on voters. But with Labour trailing in the polls, he added, every day left in the campaign needed to be a good day for Mr Brown and this clearly was not.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said Mr Brown was "mortified" over the hurt he had caused Mrs Duffy.
He told the BBC: "I'm afraid that sometimes you get picked up by a microphone in this way, saying something that yes you don't believe, but you say in the heat of a moment.
"We all do it, we all regret it and, how people I think should judge him is by how he's responded, by 'phoning her immediately and giving her an unqualified apology."
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications director who met Mr Brown after the incident, said his remarks were a "mistake".
"I don't think I have ever seen him [Mr Brown] so angry with himself," he wrote in his blog. "And he was angry less about the obvious media frenzy he had unleashed than the fact that he said what he did. She was clearly not a bigot and he knew that."
The Conservatives said Mr Brown's comments spoke for themselves.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "That's the thing about general elections, they do reveal the truth about people."
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said the incident was "just wrong", when someone had asked him a "perfectly reasonable question".
Mr Clegg later said the prime minister had "gone out of his way to apologise and that's that".
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/u ... 649853.stm
Published: 2010/04/28 19:44:49 GMT
Bigoted old woman
Bigoted old woman
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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Reality Bytes
- Posts: 534
- Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:52 pm
Re: Bigoted old woman
Interesting they have neglected to post a transcript of what the woman said for Brown to react like that - I was listening to Jeremy Vine live when this all came out and in fairness Vine did play the recording of Brown talking to the woman and she did make reference to East European immigrants - essentially Brown made a knee jerk reaction to what she was saying and he admitted that straight away, it was about the only time I happened to agree with him in so far as he said that the only way to deal with the kinds of opinions she appeared to have about immigrants is to enter into a dialogue with them even if their views might be distasteful & which he didn't do because he didn't want to get embroiled in it when he knew the press would be hanging on his and her every word just waiting to make a huge story out of it and thats why he was frustrated with his assistant who'd steered the woman to him in the first place. He was right about that - had his off camera remarks not been recorded then I would lay money on the fact the headlines would have been Brown allows racist bigot to air her views on national TV or some such nonsense. The moment the woman was presented to him he was in a lose lose situation and the fact it was one of his own people who did it must have really peed him off - it would me thats for sure.
The fact is there is a growing dissent against immigration here fanned by the press and more and more people are saying the same kind of things she said about them taking jobs and housing etc. tbh it's entirely possible the woman herself wouldn't consider that her views could be seen as bigoted, she was merely parroting a lot of the stuff I've been hearing more and more of lately fueled by the BNP and some of the daily papers, nevertheless there's no doubt that a hostile press looking for a story could easily have taken her remarks and run with them. Brown didn't need that kinda crap at this stage of the election - sadly though he forgot the microphone and handed the press an even bigger story.
The fact is there is a growing dissent against immigration here fanned by the press and more and more people are saying the same kind of things she said about them taking jobs and housing etc. tbh it's entirely possible the woman herself wouldn't consider that her views could be seen as bigoted, she was merely parroting a lot of the stuff I've been hearing more and more of lately fueled by the BNP and some of the daily papers, nevertheless there's no doubt that a hostile press looking for a story could easily have taken her remarks and run with them. Brown didn't need that kinda crap at this stage of the election - sadly though he forgot the microphone and handed the press an even bigger story.
If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you may have misjudged the situation.
Re: Bigoted old woman
Why spoil a good laugh at a politician with reasonable debate? 
But on to the wider issue.
Immigration is going to be one of the top topics of the election. My last trip to the UK I was appalled at what I had seen, 12 Polish workers in a house down the road from my Mam, and the street half full of unemployed Welsh people? London, in Kensington we hardly saw a white face? Cornwall seasonal workers in pubs and cafe's from Eastern Europe?
I may be going a bit daily mail in my old age, but surely this cannot go on?
They are talking about 70 million in the UK by the next decade, and it's full to bursting point now.
But on to the wider issue.
Immigration is going to be one of the top topics of the election. My last trip to the UK I was appalled at what I had seen, 12 Polish workers in a house down the road from my Mam, and the street half full of unemployed Welsh people? London, in Kensington we hardly saw a white face? Cornwall seasonal workers in pubs and cafe's from Eastern Europe?
I may be going a bit daily mail in my old age, but surely this cannot go on?
They are talking about 70 million in the UK by the next decade, and it's full to bursting point now.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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Reality Bytes
- Posts: 534
- Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:52 pm
Re: Bigoted old woman
Yeah it worries me actually Gob - not least because I used to teach classes on tolerance, diversity and equality etc. and yet I have heard myself saying things that I would never have even thought only a few years ago let alone voiced aloud, I still will dive in and object if someone is being really obviously and unfairly bigoted or intolerant but I'm more accepting of and even in agreement with statements and opinions which previously would have seen me wading in all guns blazing.
This is the big issue where the politicians really need to take notice - it's easy to cut n run like Brown tried to do and dismiss people as "bigots" but the sad reality is that more and more ordinary people are feeling like 2nd class citizens in their own country and whilst the politicians claim that immigrants don't get housed and don't get benefits and don't take jobs from UK workers the reality in many areas is that people are seeing more and more and more non UK nationals in council houses in their areas, competing for the same jobs, taking school places, etc. etc.
Remember the bootsale I went to on Sunday? This is deepest darkest Wiltshire, the local accent is a refined wurzle, with usually a wide variety of Welsh, Irish, Scots due to having several large military bases in the county & theres a reasonably large Chinese population locally all of whom are now 3rd or 4th generation brits. Yet the predominant language I heard all morning was east European (probably Polish) - not only were the browsers chatting away to each other in whatever language it was, but virtually 1 in 4 sellers were also east European. It was so noticeable that I commented on it to my hubby when I got back it had been like being in a foreign country!
Theres a growing problem of foreign (east European) lorries and drivers on the road who have no insurance, no licenses, and driving cars/trucks far far from roadworthy let alone mot'd or taxed. The police can do feck all about them as the drivers are driving on European licenses and just bugger off out of the country before any charges can be brought. I personally know of at least 3 people who's cars were written off and who were lucky to escape injury due to being hit by one of these drivers - and there was nothing they could do to claim other than off their own insurance which meant they ended up out of pocket and with big hikes on their insurance come renewal time.
Jobs wise there have been "studies" which claim that these migrant workers are only taking low paid manual jobs which British workers wouldn't take anyway - thats true enough BUT the part of the reason a British worker wouldn't take the job is because the level of pay simply cannot support them whilst they live here paying taxes and having our cost of living to cope with and the employers using the migrant labour isn't going to offer a "living" wage when he has such a cheap labour source available to them willing to live rough and work cash in hand then return back home to a much lower cost of living where the wages to them seem like a fortune.
And all the while this is being shoved under the carpet more and more Brits are growing more and more unhappy and the BNP is gaining more and more mainstream support and that really is something the politicians need to sit up and pay attention to.
This is the big issue where the politicians really need to take notice - it's easy to cut n run like Brown tried to do and dismiss people as "bigots" but the sad reality is that more and more ordinary people are feeling like 2nd class citizens in their own country and whilst the politicians claim that immigrants don't get housed and don't get benefits and don't take jobs from UK workers the reality in many areas is that people are seeing more and more and more non UK nationals in council houses in their areas, competing for the same jobs, taking school places, etc. etc.
Remember the bootsale I went to on Sunday? This is deepest darkest Wiltshire, the local accent is a refined wurzle, with usually a wide variety of Welsh, Irish, Scots due to having several large military bases in the county & theres a reasonably large Chinese population locally all of whom are now 3rd or 4th generation brits. Yet the predominant language I heard all morning was east European (probably Polish) - not only were the browsers chatting away to each other in whatever language it was, but virtually 1 in 4 sellers were also east European. It was so noticeable that I commented on it to my hubby when I got back it had been like being in a foreign country!
Theres a growing problem of foreign (east European) lorries and drivers on the road who have no insurance, no licenses, and driving cars/trucks far far from roadworthy let alone mot'd or taxed. The police can do feck all about them as the drivers are driving on European licenses and just bugger off out of the country before any charges can be brought. I personally know of at least 3 people who's cars were written off and who were lucky to escape injury due to being hit by one of these drivers - and there was nothing they could do to claim other than off their own insurance which meant they ended up out of pocket and with big hikes on their insurance come renewal time.
Jobs wise there have been "studies" which claim that these migrant workers are only taking low paid manual jobs which British workers wouldn't take anyway - thats true enough BUT the part of the reason a British worker wouldn't take the job is because the level of pay simply cannot support them whilst they live here paying taxes and having our cost of living to cope with and the employers using the migrant labour isn't going to offer a "living" wage when he has such a cheap labour source available to them willing to live rough and work cash in hand then return back home to a much lower cost of living where the wages to them seem like a fortune.
And all the while this is being shoved under the carpet more and more Brits are growing more and more unhappy and the BNP is gaining more and more mainstream support and that really is something the politicians need to sit up and pay attention to.
If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you may have misjudged the situation.
Re: Bigoted old woman
Highlights my problem profoundly that does RB, and is one of the main reasons I'm becoming an Aussie.
I hate bigotry with a vengeance, the last time I was in a fight I belted seven shades out of a BNP person. (He threw the first punch as he had no answer to my critique, he lost the fight too.)
BUT there has to come a point where the scales have to balance, and stuffing the UK with cheap immigrant labour is not the answer to any problem.
These 12 Poles in Bryn Rd, were probably hard working men, doing shit jobs, and earning their wages hard. I do not have anything but respect for them, but why are they there and why wasn't the problem which paved way for them being there addressed in the first instance?
I hate bigotry with a vengeance, the last time I was in a fight I belted seven shades out of a BNP person. (He threw the first punch as he had no answer to my critique, he lost the fight too.)
BUT there has to come a point where the scales have to balance, and stuffing the UK with cheap immigrant labour is not the answer to any problem.
These 12 Poles in Bryn Rd, were probably hard working men, doing shit jobs, and earning their wages hard. I do not have anything but respect for them, but why are they there and why wasn't the problem which paved way for them being there addressed in the first instance?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Bigoted old woman
Here's the section of the chat which mentions Eastern Europeans, she doesn't say anything which warrants the accusation of bigotry, I've said worse above, and I certainly don't consider what I have said bigoted.
Duffy: But how are you going to get us out of all this debt, Gordon?
Brown: We’ve got a deficit reduction plan, cut the debt by half over the next four years, we’ve got the plans that have been set out to do it - look, I was the person who came in and said -
Duffy: Look, the three main things that I had drummed in when I was a child was education, health service and looking after people who are vulnerable. There are too many people now who aren’t vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can’t get claim.
Brown: But they shouldn’t be doing that, there is no life for people on the dole anymore, if you’re unemployed you’ve got to go back to work. At six months –
Duffy: You can’t say anything about the immigrants because you’re saying you’re – but all these eastern Europeans coming in, where are they flocking from?
Brown: A million people come in from Europe, but a million British people have gone into Europe, you do know there’s a lot of British people staying in Europe as well. So education, health and helping people, that’s what I’m about.
Duffy: I hope you keep to it.
Brown: It’s been very good to meet you. And you’re wearing the right colour today! How many grandchildren do you have?
Duffy: Two.
Brown: What names are they?
Duffy: They’ve just come back from Australia where they’ve been stuck for ten days they couldn’t get back with this ash crisis.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/p ... 110540.ece
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Bigoted old woman
I am sure all the politicians say one thing to the voters, pretend to be all chummy, and then think another in private. Just that Brown was stupid enough to get his views aired. If he could - for once - be honest and say something like "Sorry - I am under a lot of pressure at the moment and said the wrong thing to vent it" then I, for one, would have more respect for the man. But no, he has to blame it on the media. He has done a few stupid things over the years (I am still smarting about selling the UK's gold at a low point in the market, but there are many others); this is just the latest.
As for immigration, it cuts both ways. A lot of Brits head off abroad under the same rules that let others in. I read a report that said, in essence, we have a great deal with France: we send our retirees there to enjoy their pensions and the French send us their top people to work in the "vibrancy" of the UK. And the situation is different in different areas. I have 3 friends who have cleaners. They all use different Polish people - because the Poles are the only ones who will do the job! One of them did have an English lady cleaning for them, but she get fed up and quit. I know of similar anecdotes in Hampshire (I am in Oxfordshire). Of course, it is pretty shitty if you lose out on a job to an immigrant, and ghettos should not be permitted to form.
I am not pro Europe per se. I have friends working at the EU who told me that the expenses scandal that hit the UK would be much worse if details were released about MEPs. And the idiots in the EU haven' been able to close off their accounts for years - they'd be in jail if that was a company! BUT. We in the UK enjoy freedoms these days within Europe that we don't get with other countries; we can live in any European country, work there, etc. The cost is reciprocation.
The EU was, in part, formed to prevent another Second World War. Maybe it has worked ...
As for immigration, it cuts both ways. A lot of Brits head off abroad under the same rules that let others in. I read a report that said, in essence, we have a great deal with France: we send our retirees there to enjoy their pensions and the French send us their top people to work in the "vibrancy" of the UK. And the situation is different in different areas. I have 3 friends who have cleaners. They all use different Polish people - because the Poles are the only ones who will do the job! One of them did have an English lady cleaning for them, but she get fed up and quit. I know of similar anecdotes in Hampshire (I am in Oxfordshire). Of course, it is pretty shitty if you lose out on a job to an immigrant, and ghettos should not be permitted to form.
I am not pro Europe per se. I have friends working at the EU who told me that the expenses scandal that hit the UK would be much worse if details were released about MEPs. And the idiots in the EU haven' been able to close off their accounts for years - they'd be in jail if that was a company! BUT. We in the UK enjoy freedoms these days within Europe that we don't get with other countries; we can live in any European country, work there, etc. The cost is reciprocation.
The EU was, in part, formed to prevent another Second World War. Maybe it has worked ...
If a man speaks in the forest and there are no women around to hear is he still wrong?
Re: Bigoted old woman
[tongue in cheek]
To be fair to Gordon, she is white and she is from Rochdale... she probably is bigoted.
[/tongue in cheek]
And yes we have all been in that situation where we've said summat under our breath when we shouldn't.
I was dealing with a notoriously difficult lady in our finance department who had had me running up and down stairs four times with different things to get an order released... on the last time she rolled her eyes at me as I handed her the documents she needed. As I walked away I said "Thank You" but muttered afterward "there's no need to be such a bitch about it" I hadn't realised she had followed me and heard me ... by the time I got back to my desk she'd already called my boss and I was read the riot act and made to apologise.
OK I'm not trying to be Prime Minister but most of us can probably empathise a little bit with him on this.
To be fair to Gordon, she is white and she is from Rochdale... she probably is bigoted.
[/tongue in cheek]
And yes we have all been in that situation where we've said summat under our breath when we shouldn't.
I was dealing with a notoriously difficult lady in our finance department who had had me running up and down stairs four times with different things to get an order released... on the last time she rolled her eyes at me as I handed her the documents she needed. As I walked away I said "Thank You" but muttered afterward "there's no need to be such a bitch about it" I hadn't realised she had followed me and heard me ... by the time I got back to my desk she'd already called my boss and I was read the riot act and made to apologise.
OK I'm not trying to be Prime Minister but most of us can probably empathise a little bit with him on this.