Deeper into the mire

AndyinBrum

Oh Gordon, Gordon, you know how to pick them dont you?

Anyone got footage of Mandleson's face when he heard what Brown had said?

Daniel Heslop

Perhaps it was a tactic to woo Lib-Dem voters?

Nicholas Hallam

"He's supposed to lead this country and he's calling an ordinary woman who's just come up and asked questions what most people would ask him – he's not doing anything about the national debt and it's going to be tax, tax, tax for another 20 years to get out of this mess – and he's calling me a bigot."

This is the problem for Brown.

PayDirt

Can we get back to the big question: the economy (we all know Brown's one big gaf). The FT is currently running a headline CAMERON ACCUSED OF ECONOMIC ILLITERACY. This is to do with comparing UK to Greece.
If the Conservatives get enough votes to form the next Govt, it is a racing certainty there will be strikes galore as cuts are made. Interesting that Alan Johnson is saying: “We will retain the record numbers of police". We are going to need the police onside whoever wins. Fasten your seatbelts. BP's rig has blown up and is about to make it into the disaster records, HMG is not far from the disaster that is Greece with people spewing out on the streets refusing to work and setting fire to anything and everything.

wrinkled weasel

No joking? Brown insults a white, working class woman who has had her share of life's burdens?

This is God's judgement on somebody who claimed to have "a moral compass" and who was "a son of the manse"

What goes around comes around, and this time, to mix metaphors and religions, in spades.

He cannot recover from this. The timeline is against him. The story will run for days and I doubt if anyone in Rochdale will be voting Labour anytime soon. As for the rest of the country, even those stupid people who still vote Labour, may just, for a moment, realise what is going down.

Rhoda Klapp

Will the number 10 smear merchants be able to do anything? Has she any skeletons in the cupboard? As I write they are looking. Give it an hour or two.

(If it does come to pass that she is smeared, I want to know the source. No lobby terms on this one.)

Vulture

I think Liebore just tanked. Irretrievably tanked. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: after 13 years of being showered in shit from them, we have only seven days until they are history. I can hardly wait.

Rhoda Klapp

Further to my last, I shouldn't have given it an hour. Fatbloke has already started on another thread.

toco

Gordon Brown is an odious thug who should never have been allowed to hold public office and we have had to put up with this very unpleasant individual for 27 years.Good riddance.

AngloWelshDragon

From the BBC "Labour minister Joan Ruddock says she is sure the prime minister will be "mortified". He really gave Gillian Duffy time and courtesy, she says. It was "unfortunate" she turned to immigration, Ms Ruddock adds."

How dare the horrible voter person mention immigration! I bet she's a waaaay-cist!

GDT

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

happy days!

Bill Rees

The reason this is so disastrous is that it confirms to all of us, even Labour voters, what we thought we already knew about Gordon Brown.

Dirty Euro

He did not call her a bigoted old woman he made a comment in private that the press reported. Mind your own business.
You can do that to anyone, if you bug them..

Naomi Muse

Send Mandelbrot some more blood pressure medicine.

Broon is the bigot, not that good lady asking her reasonable questions.

Andy Carpark

Poor old Gordon. He couldn't win a kick in a riot.

Jorge Publivic

Is it any wonder that the old working class are inclined to turn to the extreme right?

Brown and the entire nomenklatura of the Labour Party have nothing put contempt for the lower orders.

Conservative dissenters wavering in their commitment to Cameron should make sure that take the opportunity to carry the message to ordinary voters that a Conservative government would place a cap on immigration and that their financial policies will lead to job creation.

David Cameron did a great job yesterday at Bolton Lads and Girls club in demonstrating that a positive change can be wrought without a great deal of expenditure but with positive attitude.

EyeSee

He doesn't need to know her history and certainly less so than the political stunt played on Cameron recently. What she asked Brown was straightforward, honest and a question that vexes many people who have to pay Brown's vanity taxes. If you look at the definition of bigot 'a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own' it is clear just who the bigot is.

Tom Pride

After the first 'ridiculous' in the car, there seems to be a sound of something being thrown down or the back of the front seat being hit.

Paddy

No one is thinking about the poor woman who is so upset to be called a bigot.

All she did was ask him a few harmless questions and how she was going to manage on her pension.

My God - what an excuse for a man. What have we done to deserve him.

Steve S

The footage of Mrs Duffy walking off, dejected and demoralised, following the post-insult sky news/bbc interview is enough to stop quite a few votes in going to Labour across the country. This is the game changer, without doubt.

TrevorsDen

Which ever way you cut it , this knifes Brown in about a dozen places at once. It slices up every aspect of him, his policies and his party. And Guido reminds us what Brown said in the first debate - about how he had been listening to people about immigration.

But if anything could be more deadly than the incident its the footage of the pathetic half hearted appology for an appology.

Remember all you Tories - its always darkest before the dawn and yes yes yes, there is a god in heaven after all.

Paddy

You do realise he was let out without his "carer" today.

Dirty Euro

Paddy So why did Sky broadcast it then Hmmmm!
Please can I put a bug on your coast and then report you for everything you say in private.

oldtimer

Sky have just run through the whole sequence from start to finish. It sounded like a perfectly reasonable exchange - though Brown did say he would reduce the debt (not deficit) by half and she opened by saying she was now ashamed to say she was Labour.

A gastly gaffe by Brown.

Andy Carpark

On the previous thread, Fatbloke appears to be peddling the line that Mrs Duffy, far from being an ordinary voter, is almost certainly a retired derivatives trader and one-time Great She-Elephant of casino capitalism.

This commenter has a bright future ahead of him. Remember that no less than a dozen Gulf TV channels offered Comical Ali a job.

cg

The problem is that it could quite easily rebound in Brown's favour, especially if the Sun goes to town on it with four page interviews etc. Remember how his popularity went temporarily up when the Sun ran that 'heartless Brown sends mother a letter with words wrongly spelled' story?

Ed P

The Tories should have a "laughing policemen" follow Broon around for the next week, going "ho ho ho ho ha ha ha" What an utter disaster he is!

Dan Grover

Dirty Euro: A bug? He asked for it to be put there so he wouldn't actually have to talk to the journos individually. You can't rinse the media for publicity and then decry them for promoting your mistakes.

John Shields

I love what Brown says as he first gets in the car - almost an announcement of what was to come: "This is a disaster..."

To paraphrase Mick Dundee, "THAT'S not a disaster..."

Osred

Hard working reasonable lifelong Labour voter is considered a bigot by a Labour PM.

Lets see more of him without carer Sarah and handler Mandy.

Vulture

@Dirty Euro:

I know you are mentally challenged, like your Bunker colleagues Fatarse-on-bore and Dickie van Dork ( where is he, incidentally? having a sad day?) and it takes some time for these things to sink in but Bruin was NOT being bugged.

He was wearing a mic which he knew was there but stupidly forgot was live. He's stupid. Your'e stupid; the only difference is that he's Prime Minister (until next week).

Verity

Jorge Publivic - "Is it any wonder that the old working class are inclined to turn to the extreme right...".

Not only is there no "extreme right" party in Britain to turn to, there isn't even a mildly right party, with the exception of UKIP, which is politely centre right.

If you are ignorantly referring to the BNP, they are a strong leftist party ... although I think they may be modifying their hard left stance somewhat. But "extreme right" or even "mildly right", they are not.

EyeSee

Dirty Euro, you are missing the point. Certainly we all say things behind peoples' backs that we wouldn't say to them. That isn't it. The point is though, that Brown has this superior attitude about him and wrongly too. He wanted to know who had put that woman in front of him. What, a voter? Yes of course, Nokia the person who thought Gordon might talk to someone (even a Labour voter). Then he slanders her, not because she said anything even remotely bigoted, but that he felt a minor discomfort about being asked to support his policies. To explain them, because they didn't seem right. His distaste for the world outside politics (and his own politics at that) is evident and disqualifies him from high office. And yet there he is.

Frank P

Just on a point of order: HTF did this rancid placenta fall into the hands of the meeja? I can't wait for the post mortem on this monumental cock-up! Technicalities please! And the more the merrier. Best side show of the circus so far. Suddenly it ain't boring any more. The punter looked like a reincarnation of Bessie Braddock, btw.

Dick of Doncaster

Dirty Euro says:-''Please can I put a bug on your coast and then report you for everything you say in private.''
How do you know Paddy lives near the sea?

Paddy

For goodness sake please leave the lady alone.

She is so upset.

AndyinBrum

It just shows his paranoia that he thought the initial exchange was a disaster

Roger Daley

Apart from the "gaffe" his entire body language was godawful stuff- Brown was practically barging the old love out of the way to get back into his car.

Once again his bullying of women is apparent. He sickens me.

richardj

What do you all expect of the unelected one - he believes he is appointed to be PM and can not see that others may not agree to say nothing of his thirteen years of total failure -

Holly ......

Unlike Bozo,if I have something to say about anyone..I TELL THEM TO THEIR FACE!
Peter Watt feels sympathy for Bozo!
Another Labour bod who JUST DOES NOT GET IT!
This is the real side of Bozo,the smiley side IS the lie....that is why he is always found out to be lying.
Bozo is one of the 'grey' people who bow to Labour.
Labour in return feel nothing but contempt for all of us, the press,parliament,British traditions...especially English one's.
Time to get rid.

boulay

in all the excitement about brown showing his true character it has been overlooked what a ridiculous justification he gave for 1m EU immigrants in UK - he said that there are 1m brits in europe.

aside from the point that these 1m brits are spread amongst the 20 odd countries of the EU these brits are either pensioners who are supported by the state here or professionals who are not leaning on the state in the countries that they work in (no free health etc).

it is a ridiculous comparison.

John Lea

Is anyone really shocked by this? Didn't we all know that New Labour - not just Brown - have nothing but contempt for their traditional supporters, i.e. the white, native born working classes?

Neil McEvoy

Where's Richard of York?

Paddy

I think this is game set and match!

oldtimer

Back from watching Sky again and Lord Mandelson confessing that it was all a big mistake namely that Brown should not have said it and that, in fact, Brown did not mean a word of it and had apologised, profusely, to the lady. It is clear, from this interview, why he (Mandelson) is considered the master spinner - for it was a masterly performance.

Unfortunately it did not gell with the observed original incident or the observed apology given on the Jeremy Vine show. Nick Watt of the Guardian then appeared and said the incident confirmed what many believed and knew about Brown - saying one thing in public and another in private, blaming others, contempt for people who do not agree with him.

No doubt Brown is sorry - sorry he was found out, sorry it will be personally damaging, sorry it will put off Labour supporters who share those `bigoted` views about levels of immigration.

djw2009

Look, James. How can I make it clear to you? Cameron thinks that voted concerned about immigration are bigoted too. In fact, it is the whole political class (Brown-Clegg-Cameron et al) who are the real bigots - there is nothing so bigoted as the cosy consensus they're all signed up to, and their casual assumption that we should allow our nation to be taken away from us and SAY NOTHING. James, answer this: if Cameron isn't as bigoted as Brown in exactly the same way, THEN WHY IS HE FOISTING ETHNIC-MINORITY CANDIDATES ON US? Please, people, don't vote Conservative. They are anti-British bigots too.

JohnPage

Where's The Richard to spin this?

The second and maybe more important story is that this woman 'gets' the deficit, in a way that probably no one in the media expected.

They should replay her remarks about being taxed for 20 years to pay for it (something like that).

If the public have understood this, that is a huge story.

Augustus

"Brown: It was a question about immigration that really I think was annoying."

Immigration comes at a hefty price when you put party interests before national interests.

Paddy

Dick of Doncaster: I think he means "coat" not "coast".

L Hay

Pretty much what political/media people have known for some time about the man's character and attitude. And he talks about 'respect'! It is not just 'bigots' but also his attitude to anyone who disagrees with him and also, seemingly women (as noted by Catherine Flint when she was sacked; in fact women have been underepresented in the Cabinet but over-represented in being sacked as Ministers!) His character defects are why there were all the initial attempts to get rid of him early in 2009. He is devisive in his own party and I very much fear that Labour will end up as a 'hung-party' in a 'hung-Parliament'.

King Prawn

Given McBruin's cock up, do why know think:-

a. Brown has destroyed his credibility to be PM 100%: and
b. Will this now allow the Tories to come clean on the public sector cuts that they will have to make if they gain power knowing that any attack from Brown will be defused by today's events?

Liberty

Brown also said that he would halve the debt in four years in response to Mrs Duffy's question about debt when it is the deficit he plans to halve in four years thus deliberately confusing debt with deficit.

Kennybhoy

Gordon Brown.

The BNP's Recruiting Sergeant!

Walsingham's Ghost

@ Dirty Euro

"Gordon? - is that you?..."

Mark Cannon

We have long been told that Brown is a charming man in private, relaxed, witty, etc. Well he isn't. And we all know it.

Paddy

Even Richard is too ashamed to "post".

GDT

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

happy days!

Derek

"Mrs Duffy told him that she felt that the issue of immigration was not being discussed properly for reasons of political correctness. "You can't say anything about immigrants," she said, "and, Mrs. Duffy [might have] continued, "when is that nice man, Mr.Nelson, going to publish that article on the Neathergate scandal which he promised his readers?" .

J H Holloway

For once, I'm proud to have come up from working class Lancashire.

It takes a down to earth woman, who's worked hard all her life and counted the coppers, to point out the obvious to her 'betters'.

You can't keep borrowing money forever and you have to pay it back one day. And you can't keep letting in millions of new people into a cramped country.

The university-educated 'elites' and the international socialists/middle class marxists that run Labour, the Liberals and much of the public sector have been served a brutal, unspinnable, lesson in plain common sense.

And we've all now heard how these hard-bitten ideologues react when faced with plain common sense.

If Cameron has any brains, he'll realise that the dam has finally broken and the North London media consensus has been punctured by a Northern housewife.

My second thought is that Armando Iannucci and his Thick of It team will have a right job satirising politics from now on, but the 'People's Champion' episode from the last series has uncanny parallels with this game-changing incident.

Norman Dee

No he's not here either, anyone seen Richard of York? He's going to miss all the fun
RICHARD.

Derek

Yes, folks, Gordon Brown - the enemy of the working class.

Percy

@ Andy Carpark

It's clearly true, Mrs Duffy was a New York based investment bankers who caused the sub-prime crisis pretty much on her own.

michael

Having heard the encounter I actually thought Gordon handled it quite well with genuine empathy.... Then I heard the doublespeak .....

I've just had an object lesson in confidence trickery ... I am stupid .

tenpin

Rick of York....care to comment?

Jorge Publivic

Verity, 2:14pm

The BNP are generally perceived to be right wing on the basis of their attitude to racial attitudes and white supremacist position.

You may be right in taking the view that they are left wing but you would need to explain the basis for that view.

Many people recognize that concept of politics based on a right/left dichotomy has limitations but in common parlance Marxist revolutionaries are placed on the far left and nationalist xenophobes occupy the far right.

But of course when it comes to the whole gamut of political issues we are all left or right of somebody - more hardline or less hardline - and frequently the term is quite meaningless.

However, for argument sake and in day to day conversation I regard the SWP as far left and the BNP far right.

If you think that is ignorant that's OK but I'm beginning to have doubts about your allegiances - and your manners.

Verity

Jorge Publivic - I have a feeling that you're one of those people who refer to Hitler as having been "far right", despite the fact that he was far left. But the left wants to disavow him because he is spoiling the brand, so they accord him the biggest insult in the lefty lexicon: FAR RIGHT.

Hitler was head of the Socialist Workers Party, but what the hell.

Incidentally, you might also want to school yourself on the definition of xenophobia. That is an irrational fear of foreigners. I don't know anyone who fears foreigners ... do you?

Jez

@ GDT.

I'd just like to stop you there and remind you that this is a serious issue!

The Prime Minister / Nulab seem to have no common ground with the communities they've set out to decimate this last 13 years.

Let's maturely look at this, sense the turmoil this has inflicted upon the tens of thousands of Nulab Party faithful that proudly display their Vote Labour signs in their gardens, canvass and leaflet for their beliefs......

AND LAUGH EVEN LOUDER!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ..

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH....

HAHAHA.....

Ha.

soundman

and he's a goddam radio mike thief!

David Ossitt

Jorge Publivic.

“If you think that is ignorant that's OK but I'm beginning to have doubts about your allegiances - and your manners.”

Who do you think you are, how dare you say that you are beginning to have doubts about the allegiances of another poster, or to question that posters ‘manners’.

Jorge Publivic

David Ossit,

I dare on precisely on the same basis that you dare - that is freedom of speech in response to a challenge.

If one implies that another is 'ignorant' it necessarily raises a question of manners - it isn't just isn't polite to answer in this way. Similarly, if someone suggests that it is unfair to refer to the BNP as being left wing, it raises the question of allegiance - still more if he she suggests that it is somehow ill-informed and insulting to call Hitler was right wing.

You and Rivety are all over the place. Get a grip and try to express ideas according to the principles of Grice.

David Ossitt

Jorge Publivic

Hey public shithouse! Kindly spell my name correctly in future.

David Ossitt

I've reported your comment because extremely abusive and insulting language ihas no place in the coffee shop.

Your comment, otherwise, does not merit a reply.

David Ossitt

Jorge Publivic.

My most sincere apologies, I had thought that Publivic was the Spanish or Portuguese for a Portaloo.

Herge Publivitovic

Naw, Ossit, Publivic is Serbian name it mean you know like little son of public and good servant of the people but child of nobody like son of a gun anyway it changing now so no confusion. OK.

Portaloo? How come you don't have bathroom in home? You poor so you vote for Nick? Is true?