Will there be a backlash against criticism of Brown?

Austin Barry

Only Lazarus could come back from this mess.

Phil Tomlinson

Every reason for not voting Brown displayed in three hours!

Tom Pride

I’ve just got to be dreaming. Pinch me.

Percy

There won't be any backlash because I doubt there is anyone sane who's the remotest bit surprised by the actions of this very stupid man.

alexsandr

He is toast after this

http://www.iliketoast.com/

Ben Barclay

I think its gonna add fuel to the fire of distrust of British Politics all politicans will come off badly. and also i havnt seen an apology, i have seen no acceptence of saying the things he did, he kept saying if i said those things on the radio 2 interview and when he came out after speaking on the phone to her he couldnt stop with the insincere grin!

toco

The man Brown is dangerous and very nasty.No words can make him appear different.

Sir Graphus

The Jacqui Janes backlash came about because Brown had tried to do a decent thing and made a hash of it, and the criticism was OTT.

Here, it's his own, unspun words.

TomTom

Wasn't Rochdale Ruth Kelly's old seat ?

Posting on the Rochdale Online forum, Unison representative at Rochdale Infirmary, Pete Hinchcliffe had stronger words to say: "Well that's Labour's campaign over. Thanks Gordon you stupid sod. What a kick in the balls for all of us who have worked so bloody hard."

SteveNI

My nine year old son has just said..

"I don't trust him... how can you have a Prime Minister you can't trust"

Out of the mouths of babes....

Tiberius

It is certainly true, James, that the rules of the game are different for the Tories to Labour, which is why the Tories can only ever give the kind of considered response that George Osborne has given.

So the question is whether the media will backlash iteslf, I guess?

RKing

Backlash?.........

.........Yea I hope so!!

He he he !!!

GDT

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

even after several hours this is hilarious.

Happy days!

JONNY

Was he bugged
or just buggered?

Martin Brown

Ben Barclay, what on earth are you mumbling about???

And the idea that this somehow reflects on other politicians is errant nonsense.

It just demonstrates that Gordon Brown is a nasty, two-faced, little man.

munich15040

Labour reveal themselves as the Truly Nasty Party.

Tom Pride

How prescient wee Dougie has turned out to be.

‘Mr Watt says Mr Alexander had said that Cabinet ministers had wanted a general election in autumn 2007 because they felt that the public would grow to dislike Mr Brown. He quotes the minister as saying:

“The truth is, Peter, we have spent years working with this guy and we don’t actually like him. We have always thought that the longer the public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.” ’

At the time Dougie chose to hide his light under a bushel.

‘Mr Alexander said yesterday: “This was not my view then and is not my view now.” ’

Go on Dougie, you can tell us the truth now. Take your bow. Respect.

Tweedledum

In his conversation with Mrs Duffy, Brown also claimed "We are halving the debt." Considering that they're doubling it, to £1.3 trillion, he didn't only insult her but lied to her as well.

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

The Rochdale incident revealed more to the British electorate than 300 stage-managed televised election "debates" ever will.

The majority of "professional politicians" cannot deal with the straightforward questions of the ordinary public. What he couldn't handle ("misunderstood") were simple questions for which he has only spin and stats.

Mrs Duffy has demonstrated that there is a healthier appetite for honest debate on the streets of Rochdale than in either the House of Commons or the TV studio.
The Commons may allow him to never answer a direct question with a direct answer. Mrs Duffy is, obviously, of sterner stuff.

The PM just wasn't up to it. So she was labelled a "bigot".

In declining to come out of her house after the Prime Minister's visit, Mrs Duffy has done herself, and the electorate a great service.

Why should there be a backlash against criticism of Brown?
Criticism is part of the democratic process.

Bob Cat

Have to say I do feel a bit for Brown. I have no brief for him . I held Major in contempt in 1997 but as I watched him slog his way to certain defeat, I couldn't help but feel some sympathy for him.

The point has also been made that Cameron and Clegg - being of the same cast of mind as Brown - would have thought if not said, the same thing, to anyone who might dare to raise the subject of immigration and how its transforming this country.

The point being that the political class - per se - hold the electorate in utter disdain. Not just Brown; although he's the most visible manifestation of the disease.

Mark Cannon

The problem is that Brown is seen being frinedly to Mrs Duffy to her face and then heard slagging her off (for no good reason) seconds later. That is rank hypocrisy.

Graham Walker

Broon has been living on borrowed time since he became PM...this gaff has just finished him off. He has confirmed to the voting public that he is two faced bully. He is not only useless but nasty too! We don't need such a sad character in British politics...the sooner he goes the better.

charles hercock

If you are in a hole why keep digging

Murg

Congratulations GDT - your laughter exceeds all boundaries - well the blog page anyway.

Three Cheers for Gordon's Gaffe.

GoodbyeGordon

Brown emerged smiling from Mrs Duffy's house - grinning like an idiot. Is there any better example of this man's total dysfunctionality? To say he misunderstood her is a typical Brown lie - there was nothing to misunderstand. He views all of us as inconvenient bigots.

Noa

Accosted in the street, then subjected to phone calls and even a visit in her own home by a perptually smiling one eyed wierdo with an turkey gobbling speech habit, this incident vividly demonstrates the breakdown in law and order since nu-lab came to power.

Can't the police deal with this perverse, revolting man?

Has this poor woman no protection under anti-stalking legislation?

Chalcedon

He's cyanide!

Woody

When I first heard this on the news, my immediate thought was by late afternoon after Labour ministers, spin doctors, Labour luvvies and the BBC24 having finished spinning it in favour of Labour, then GB would start to get the sympathy vote. It's now 5pm and I can feel that is starting to happen but how much we will have to wait and see.
What I do know is that if it was David Cameron (and I don't believe he would be so stupid) then Labour ministers/supporters would be trampling over each other to get to the nearest microphone to say "same old tories."
I am a working-class voter and immigration would have been at the top of my list. If he had called me a bigot, he wouldn't have got near my house.

Maggie

On top of everything else I think he sounded patronising when he referred to her as "Gillian". In referring to a grandmother who he barely knows he should have been respectful enough to address her as Mrs Duffy.

Sian Allan

All my Christmases have come at once - needed cheering up after last 2 weeks of Cleggmania.....like we needed another reason not to vote for this bunch of losers!

AdamR

Where's Dick of York to try and defend the indefensible?

Dirty Euro

I suppose your right. I will never criticize anyone in private ever again. Good point.
We should have TV boxes in our house to make sure of this.
Who will join me.

Swiss Bob

Of course the BBC are spinning away like mad but if the number of visitors I am getting and the number of comments on the video I have uploaded are anything to go by then not many will be fooled.

I would suggest the next poll will see Labour at between 20 and 25%.

Goodbye and good riddance to bad rubbish.

Beer Moth

Well, here we are with a PM who has been outed as a hater of ordinary British people and their bigoted concerns.

I would just like to point out that it is not too long ago, that that very same disdain was being issued routinely from these pages; and its spirit still lingers despite the tenor being recently somewhat damped down.

Jorge Publivic

Woody,

Good point and if Brown had the slightest consideration for his own party he would resign now and let another take the reins at this eleventh hour - it might just save some of their seared bacon.

Like all dictators -elected or not - he hangs to the bitter end of disaster.

Would Alan Johnson have the guts to institute a coup?

TrevorsDen

Don't be daft Bob Cat.

His second appology was in some ways even worse than the forst non appology. why the gurning rictus grin ?? was there something funny about the situation??

And his excuse? How long did they take to dig that one up. It was not the same as the first. There was nothing to misunderstand. His excuse is a downright lie.

Marcher Baron

It is clear from the picture of Brown with his head in his hands listening to the gaffe being replayed (he didn't know there was a camera there, either!) that even El Gordo has twigged that he's a busted flush. It seems that even keeping his contact restricted to the faithful (Mrs D was a Labour supporter, after all) can't protect him from himself! Incompetent, mendacious and two-faced - who on earth could vote for this man?

Bill Rees

Gillian Duffy has done the country a great service by refusing to come out from her house with Brown to formally accept his apology in front of the waiting media.
Thank goodness she is a woman of principle.

Robert Williams

It's easy to misunderstand when one is as stupid as Brown. He couldn't grasp that doubling the income tax rate from 10p to 20p would result in some people paying more tax. In his conversation with Mrs Duffy he erroneously claimed that Labour was increasing the personal allowance for old people - not true it is frozen at 2009/10 levels, he then "confused" debt & deficit.

Vulture

@ well Gillian better not take any walks in the woods or she might share the fate of the last person who make Liebore look foolish: David Kelly.

Seriously, we the people are the ones who should hang our heads in shame, not the mentally ill man who's still got a week as PM.

Why on earth have we allowed tbhis nasty, brutish, dysfunctional, dishonest, incompetent, malicious and two-faced, one-eyed old brute to rule our lives for the last 13 years. That's the shameful thing.

Noa

Vulture

I'm surprised at this equivocation.

Why don't you come off the fence and tell us what you you really think of Gordon?

Thoughtmantle

@Vulture
If you change "rule" to "ruin" your post would be word perfect.

Michael Booth

DON'T GO INTO THE WOODS, MRS DUFFY!

(Had to shout - it's a long way from here to Rochdale and Mrs D might not hear as well as she once did).

Snowman

it's bad for politics all around; the turnout will be even lower than in 2005, and whoever gets in first may do so on less than 20% of the popular vote, I reckon. Democracy or what?

Dorothy Wilson

Will Johnson have the guts to instigate a coup? No. And even if he did he would not survive for long.

HFC

Check this out:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s8lhw/Dermot_Meets_..._Gordon_Brown/

Choose Brown, get Cameron. What is the BBC up to?

Captain Christy

TOM TOM No! Ruth Kelly was MP for my place Bolton West. She has spent the last 13 years having babies and cost us a fortune in maternity leave. How did these bastards survive so long ?

Jimmy Hicks

So he, "simply misunderstood some of the words she had used" - is that the story?

si cameron

Did Major offer any apologies after calling members of his own cabinet bastards?

daniel maris

No - this is as someone said a "game changing" event.

There will be no Brown bounce because:

1. It's clear he meant what he said.

2. It confirmed his reputation as an office bully, immediately looking for some staffer to blame.

3. Sufficient nos. of people now know via Thick of It and all that how these games are played. They can see the "apology" was a PR stunt.

4. Brown looked at his plastic smile worst outside her house.

5. She's sold her story to a paper.

6. The whole thing is emblematic of the view of the British political elite of ordinary voters as an irritating, ignorant irrelevance. And it is clear that people like Brown see mass immigration as an unalloyed blessing, delivering huge amounts of Labour vote fodder.

This is big, big, big I would say.

stephen maybery

And still the campaign staggers on from one lie to another, the whole screaching orchestra under the baton of lord rasputin of foy. I do believe it is time the dutyfull sarah performed an act of sacrifice, and in immition of charlotte corday, stabbed her husband in the bath.

Ferda

Britons complaining about immigration must be one of the most outrageous acts of hypocrisy in recorded history.

A nation that colonised half of the world and exported MILLIONS of its people to grab whatever was available abroad complaining about immigration!!!!

A nation that even today keeps leaving its country in droves to live abroad! There are now MILLIONS of Britons living in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, not speaking the local languages, ignorant of the local culture and establishing closed communities complete with Tescos selling crappy British food. And these people complain about immigration! Incredible!

If course Mrs Duffy is a bigot. But Mr Brown should have told her directly.