Gordon Brown was caught on a live mic describing a Labour supporter he encountered as a "bigot". He later apologized, but it was the kind of gaffe that can sink a campaign. Already in trouble for all the reasons the supporter, Mrs. Gillian Duffy, a widow and pensioner, mentioned on camera while Brown chatted with her, Brown now also comes off as a hack (which he is not): insincere, haughty (he is that) and quick to blame his staff instead of himself.
The negative images are especially damaging because they re-enforce tropes about him that have been established loosely heretofore.
The campaign encounter with a polite, but relentlessly critical voter, is the kind of nightmare that would cause any politician to cringe. But it would not even have been a memorable news item except for Brown's mistaken belief his mic was turned off while he maligned 66 year old Mrs. Duffy. Now, however, the whole interview will be read, and seen on video, endlessly, including not only Mrs. Duffy's remark that politicians are afraid to talk about immigration, but also her comments that the Labour Government has run up such a huge deficit that it will be "tax, tax, tax for 20 years" to pay it down.
The tax issue, as I have written here before, is the achilles heel of Labour, and even a weakness for the LIberal Democrats. The only question is how adroit the Tories are in pursuing it. Happily for the Conservatives' David Cameron, a sensationally covered Labour voter has helped make the case for him.
The story is damaging when covered by the London Times, of course, but it also is nearly as damaging as carried by The Guardian. Rupert Murdoch owns the Times, and he also happens to own Sky Channel TV, and it was a Sky Channel mic that caught the P.M. jabbering unawares to aides as they drove from the scene, and it was a Sky Channel scoop the launched the story.
Mrs. Duffy, the Labour pensioner, is not talking in public now, even though Mr. Brown came back to her house and spent 40 minutes apologizing for his unkind comments. In the grand modern English tradition, she apparently has sold her story to the tabloid Sun where, you can be sure, it will get lots and lots of play.
if you have ever run for office you have to feel bit sorry for the harried Prime Minister. He probably was just venting in a thoughtless, supposedly private way. Regardless, this episode may end Labour's chance of forming the next Government. It further could mean that Labour comes in third in the coming election and suffers a resulting long term eclipse. People don't know much about tariffs and budgets, but they recognize very well when a pol is being mean about a little old lady.
(The video of the Brown talk with Mrs. Duffy must be excruciating for Brown supporters to watch. The ending, with the P.M. driving away in his campaign car while he talks into the live mic about what a "disaster" the discussion was and demanding to know who set it up and calling dear Mrs. Duffy a "bigot", is the stuff of instant legend and classic satire.)
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