Brown's apology to Labour members

Ghengis

Best to stop digging mate, otherwise the hole will certainly fall inwards on you.

BigAl

Say one thing in public and another in private. So typically Labour as the electorate are all fools........

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

Beyond parody.

chris as usual

Hypocrite. Simple as that.

Graham Booth

All those years without apologising and now we get three in a day.

He's dead in the water, and if I were a Labour activist I'd be absloutely fuming.

toco

The hapless Brown should be apologising to the British public rather than to his own mates-he is a disgrace and should never have been allowed to hold public office.Good riddance.

Osred

Another of those 'lessons learned' then Gordon?

Percy

It really is incredible that this nut job has got so far in politics, let alone that he is our Prime Minister.

Ian Walker

13 years too late for growing a conscience, Gordon.

Remember when you asked us to judge you on your vision? Well, you've come out and said it - your vision is a Britain without the Tories in power. Nothing positive, just envy and spite.

SarahK

Do you think his wife told him to do this? I note the day he makes his biggest mistake is when she's not around!

Moriarty

Where's Richard? I'm missing my fix. Has he run off with Peppa Pig?

ollie

This guy is getting increasingly unbalanced. Hitler went down with more dignity than this abberation.

Andre

Gordon, ol' son Never explain, never apologize.

Jared

Repulsive asbergeroid bigot.

The truth comes out and smacks him in the face.

I notice he didn'y have his wife with him this time. She saved the day when he visited the children's nusery- got the clown to sit down!

Nicholas Hallam

Don't forget that the whole Labour party shares the blame for inflicting this man on us without the proper electoral examination which is only happening now.

Fingal

• The reason this incident will hurt Brown is twofold it shows his contempt for ordinary people and it shows his hypocrisy. Mrs Duffy was an ordinary voter, indeed a lifelong Labour voter,, with entirely reasonable concerns about, among other things pensions, public sector debt and immigration. Brown appeared to listen to her and patted her on the back as they parted. She was convinced, was going to continue voting Labour. Yet as soon as he was in private it was “Who let that awful woman near me?” and of course called her a bigot. She is not a bigot, not a deranged BNP supporter spouting bile, just an ordinary voter. Brown’s utter contempt for the ordinary punter has been well and truly exposed. Brown claims to be mortified but we all know he is only mortified at being caught out not because of what he did. And who would believe his apparently fulsome apology to Mrs Duffy, when we all know as soon as he is in private he will once more be expressing his utter contempt for Mrs Duffy? Apologies from the two faced are worth nothing. A "penitent sinner" no a pharissee and hypocrite more like!

George

Can't the BBC get Mrs Duffy to chair the leaders' debate tomorrow. She'd be much better than Dimbleby. My heroine!

Willie de Peepul

Could've been worse (for him). At least he's not on record as having used any of the expletives one has heard reported as coming from his backroom bruisers in no. 10.

Noa

An immoral compass, inset in a magnet.

Greg Noonan

Not a natural campaigner. Not by a longshot.

Here's hoping any Labour implosion is to Cameron's benefit.

Ghengis

It may be that Gillian has become our national treasure, she's a natural for a fully reformed upper chamber

Ghengis

Fingal: super post, in a nutshell, Brown is definitely proven to have no principle.

tenpin

Has anyone seen the old dear since Brown left her house? I am a little concerned..... Although good on Gordon he's giving the writers of "The Thick of It" plenty of material....I can see Malcolm Tucker having an embolism over this one....

Ken

Far too much mercy being shown on Speccie blog today.

I want the traitor dealt every low blow possible, and then removed to long-term, preferably unsafe, custody under heavy and perpetual sedation, such is the depth of the ruin and destruction this singularly cretinous politician has wreaked on the next four generations and indeed the major economies.

Paul B

BUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRP- Pass the sick bag Alice.

Sir Graphus

I think Graham Booth makes a decent point; imagine you've been out canvassing. It's thankless; you don't like Brown much but at least he's not a Tory. And then he undoes all your work in an instant.

This is the point when every Lab activist says "bollocks", and gives up.

bob

What a complete and utter prat

Stevie

Where's Fatty Reinaldo and Ricky Rest-Bite?

Thomas Cussans

The official Mandelson line is not just that McBigot didn't 'mean' what he said but that he 'misunderstood' what Mrs Duffy said.

This is as good as beyond parody.

Everyone listening in to the conversation, courtesy needless to say of a Labour Party press team desperate to see McManiac with an 'ordinary' voter. 'understood' the conversation, if it can honestly be called that, only too well.

The reality is that there was nothing to understand. It was all entirely clear: disgruntled elderly lady in Labour northern heartland voicing obvious concern while patronising Brown put on his best fake-smile act. No ambiguity, no nuance, no complexity.

To claim that Brown alone was somehow flatfooted by Mrs Duffy – 'Gillian' now to her would-be best friend – that he alone was unclear as to what she was saying, is a precise indication that the Labour spin-machine has wholly lost it.

Is this honestly the best they can come up with?

I do hope so.

To coin no phrase at all: Brown is toast.

This was, properly, a game-changer.

Frank P

One can only hope that someone from Widow Duffy's family has contacted a publicity agent for her.

Hope it's not Max Clifford, as he's a Labour supporter and he would probably fix a deal with the Daily Mirror to (a) earn her (and himself) a big pay-off and (b) at the same time get Goron off the hook.

OTOH, if the Currant Bun managed to get her on the payroll, it could do Gordon in at the knees if it deputed a good midwife to tease out the right interview response. It's probably too late for Brown, anyway, but Mrs Duffy could definitely put the last nail in the Zombie's coffin, a stake through his miserable heart and she could make a little cash to supplement her pension - a surprise tax credit denied to her by Gordon - paid at the expense of his job as "Prime" Minister and also acquiring for him a new title - Prize Prick!

And I still think he's guilty of harassment along with his thugs by invading her home. How did he get her personal details FFS? So add 'invasion of privacy' and 'misuse of official records' to the charges. His SB officers should have advised him against this course of action. But as we know the Met. has its head up this administration's arse. It's a pity that the seriousness of the situation is diluted somewhat by the comedic aspects of the incident. But as someone pointed out on another thread, ridicule is the most damaging weapon a politician can encounter - so perhaps its all for the best.

If Cameron can't make capital out of this tomorrow night, then he deserves to lose the election. Clegg can't abandon his 'nice young man' guise, so come on, Dave, even someone like you, with two left feet, surely can't miss this open goal.

Holly ......

This is the second day I have seen the bod behind Blair..Lord Gould..an absolute clone.
Complete with bogus pauses
Classic..classic...Bogus Labour.
Is this so called lord being genuine or is he spinning?
Will Bozo be talking truthful in the debate or is he just pretending?

Phil Brooks

Didn't Labour recently deselect the cadidate for South Cambridgeshire for making offensive remarks on a website.Do the same rules apply to Gordon?

David Ossitt

I have read each and every one of the blogs on this subject and all of the posts commenting but have not found any mention of something that I find very disturbing.

We were told that Gordon Brown was to change tack in his electioneering, in that he would start meeting real members of the public, instead of those party members who pretended to be ordinary at stage-managed events.

And so we come to this fiasco in the suburbs of Rochdale, what disturbed me was that in his car Brown asked something like ‘who arranged that’ this tells us that his meet and greet had been planned to be anything but spontaneous.

The second thing that nobody has commented on, was that the woman after the event when she was being interviewed by Sky News, said something to the effect of ‘why here’ spreading her arms to indicate the absence of people ‘he would have met more people down in Rochdale’, she then said, ‘nobody knew he was coming, it was not until I saw the police cordon and came to investigate that I saw it was him’.

My point is that he was supposed to be doing a Cameron, going out to speak to Joe Public but he was not it was all a sham.

But then what can we expect everything he does is a sham.

Naomi Muse

Curioser and curioser.

He should be begging them for forgiveness for he has let everyone down yet again.

He should also be begging all voters for their forgiveness and he ought to revise the way he refers to 'woman' because it also sounded to be a derogatory term from his tone of voice.

mirabelle

Ok now it's also on French TV. The press should get over it.

Don't know for whom to vote?
http://www.leblogdelamirabelle.net/pensees-qui-trainent-par-la/la-carte-electorale-britannique-au-tresor-the-vote-u-lator-will-find-you/
A lot of people are told they are conservative by this program, so I have my doubts.

Wurzel Gummidge

Why does the berk keep digging?

Is he digging for the UK?

the antipodes?

Good God please someone, Mandy, Campbell, Nye - put the man out of his omnishambles ...

Hoisted

A petard sinner hoist by his own penitance ...

Ooooh, nurse, you ain't half naughty!

Richard

Serve cold. And often.

Gil

And Channel 4 news this evening doing their best to spin it as a matter of Brown's temper to try and divert attention from the serious concerns that people have about immigration.

Jon Snow interviewed some woman who was wittering on about how ALL the parties were to blame for even discussing immigration so Brown was merely a victim of the current climate. What a spin on Gillian Duffy's point about immigration out of control NOT immigration as such.

That's how Labour are going to spin it in order to get votes from the snobbish Liberal Democrats and provoke the Tories so that some of their supporters vote for the BNP or UKIP.

Cottage Pie

CAMERA ON, CAMERA OFF, GORDON ON GORDON OFF

Victor Southern

Well so far we are a group who regard this with complete lack of surprise. Everybody knew that Brown was not safe to be brought into contract with ordinary people in the street. Snake charmers know not to allow their cobras to get into the audience and bad-tempered dogs are kept muzzled and on a leash.

On Conservative Home there are 3 spinners whose URL is from the Fabian Society who are actually applauding Brown over this affair. This shows that the deep intellectual heart of New Labour is contemptuous of the British working class [particularly the English]and see them only as "useful idiots" to be milked every few years for their votes.

Clegg and the LibDems also have the policy that all immigration is good and they are so equally disconnected from true public opinion.

Now oddly enough Brown and Clegg are still polling at 60% of the vote but we do know that far more than 60% of the populace are worried about immigration and its effects. The mathematics of this phenomenon leave me defeated.

Last night I attended a public election meeting in a nice hall in a middle-class area. Several audience members raised the topic of immigration yet that is an area not feeling the maximum in pressures. None of them sounded hysterically bigoted, none were calling for pogroms against immigrants - just concerned about the availability of public resources of all kinds.

Scrobs...

And Nick Clegg, the next 'in your dreams sunshine' prime minister, is all magnanimous saying it could happen to anyone, mainly because he's just won the first seat of the campaign, and there's still nine days to go!

This must be a record, (Rochdale always goes left and right like a tomcat's willy) unless all the postal votes have been filed accordingly...

Dorothy Wilson

I have posted this before but make no apologies for doing so again. Extract from Brown's personality profile:

"Cold blooded strategist, loner, theorist who is arrogant, unsocialable, and has a certain disdain for others he considers stupid. Seem to others to be constantly angry, almost hateful. Completely certain in his own opinions, strong willed. Sometimes shamelessly exploited by strong women. Attacked from the unconscious by a primitive extraverted feeling function, which makes him take every criticism, however fair, very personally – and later makes them seek revenge.

He will follow his ideas …… inwards and not outwards. Intensity is his aim, not extensity. the pursuit of his ideas he is generally stubborn, headstrong, and quite unamenable to influence. However clear to him the inner structure of his thoughts, he is not the least clear how they link up to the world of reality.

In his personal relations he is taciturn or else throws himself on people who cannot understand him, and for him this is one more proof of the abysmal stupidity of man.

The counterbalancing functions of feeling, intuition and sensation are comparatively unconscious and inferior."

In most people, as they move towards maturity, those counterbalancing influences are supposed to develop. Unfortunately, that seems to not to have happened with Brown.

Thus we have someone who can only believe what is in his own head and anyone who challenges that is just stupid. Unfortunately, it is the rest of us who have had to suffer.

charles hercock

Go on digging Gordon
Truth is you make us all sick

John Richardson

I wonder what the current Conservative leadership really thinks of traditional Conservative voters ?

john miller

Sadly for Gordon, such ingenious escape clauses as "I accepted a million pound donation from Mr Ecclestone and I have exempted Formula 1 from the tobacco ban but, hey , I am a straight kinda guy". No longer have, err, traction.

Gord has sat on the chair, wiped himself with saline solution and thrown the switch.

Perhaps we can move on after all...

HFC

Check this out:

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

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

Dorothy Wilson

So yesterday we had the IFS bringing the dire state of the economy out into the open.

Now Mrs Duffy has brought the topic of immigration into the open too.

As hitherto these subjects seemed to be taboo we should say a big thank you to them.

Michael Booth

Fingal, the definition of 'fulsome' is 'disgusting, offensive, excessive and insincere'... ah, yes, you chose the word wisely..................

salieri

"But you, like I...."

Like I???

Wot, can't this troglodyte now even speak English?

John Adlington

Why was Brown grinning like a maniac when addressing the media post-apology. I hate him, I'm made up, for me it's perfect, but isn't the clown at least trying to win this election?

ajs

Mandelson might pick up a few hints on decent behaviour in commenting on such things as the latest Brown gaffe from his South American friend (is he a formal partner? or what).
The South Americans usually seem to have some idea of decent behaviour in public.

Moraymint

What a load of bo****ks. Least said, soonest mended, I'd say.

The man's toast ... and not before time.

Derek

David Ossitt
"the woman said something to the effect of 'why here?', spreading her arms..."

*****
A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Shortly, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death, and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant's horse, he flees at top speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles (125 km), where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death, and asks why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, "That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

Paddy

It is a "full moon" after all.

Moraymint

John Adlington
April 28th, 2010 9:01pm

Yes, during a light, early evening snack in the kitchen with Mrs Moraymint, I found myself raging at the telly on the wall when I saw Brown stood outside of Mrs Duffy's house grinning like a deranged Cheshire cat whilst telling us how he'd solved the problem for himself in a religious sort of way ...

Oh thank God, not much longer now.

PS Mrs Moraymint usually has to interject on these occasions with a polite, "Calm down dear ...", for fear of things getting out of hand.

Tiberius

John Richardson: simply that they're living in the past. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that except it doesn't win you GEs.

Simon Denis

I've just seen the footage on the beeb. The poor lady! If anyone is an innocent in this world, it is her - widowed, vulnerable, loyal, good hearted and innocent with perfectly legitimate concerns. For voicing them, Brown condemns her; he does so behind her back and is too careless and incompetent to cover his rancid hypocrisy with common precautions. If anyone is thinking of not backing the Tories, if only to drive this revolting, back-stabbing, incapable hypocrite from office, they should think again.

logdon

Biggotgate just gets better by the minute.

Gillian Duffy: 'I can't believe he said that. All my life I've voted Labour'.

Just shows how they really are, eh?

By the way have any readers been to Rochdale?

A Neatherland in extremis. She is right but being tactful and avoiding accusations of racism morphed South Asia into Eastern Europe.

Safer that way in today's climate of anti white racial intolerance which is not lost on the indiginous people who inhabit these towns and cities.

Ron Todd

I have just listened to the Brown conversation with Gillian Duffy on the BBC. While everybody is getting worked up about the immigration thing nobody at the BBC has pointed out that he claimed to have a plan to half our debt in 4 years where as all he has is a plan to half the deficit in 4 years.

Simon Mennie

Qui s'excuse s'accuse....

Ke H

Where are the men in white coats?

Jimmy

Brown to Labour members: "I know how hard you all work to fight for me and the Labour Party". There it is: ME! Above all else, ME.

You guys are thick.

Roy Smith

Like Bob the Builder with Obama, it's the little people who show them up for what they are.

Rhys

The real bigotry is that of the political elite against the great majority of the country that is concerned, truly concerned, about the grotesque levels of uncontrolled immigration which have hugely damaged our quality of life and standard of living .

But we all know GB was just unfortunate to be accidentally caught out. All three major parties have conspired to smother this subject ' not in front of the children '.

General Zod

The latest Labour line is that he thought she said something about "f*cking immigrants", but when he invaded her house she explained that she said "immigrants flocking".

It was all just a little misunderstanding and the voters will understand that, have sympathy for Gordon and vote Labour, despite the best efforts of the right-wing mainstream press to smear him.

I'm serious; they really are trying to spin this line.

hadrian

The man's the Stan Laurel of politics- 'Another fine mess...' his aides must be thinking. What larks!

echo34

Good luck to mrs Duffy,

She stood up for what she thought was important and put it across in plain english. She was obviously distressed by what followed her conversation with brown.
No blame for what has happened can be laid at her door.

The wally's said sorry and will now pay the price.

Now I want to see Mrs Duffy left alone by the media and westminster.

James Featherwell

Moral outrage is flimsy. When it came to today's reportage of the "bigotgate" affair, the range of moral judgement was as thin as ectoplasm and just as convincing.

That is not to say that something is not wrong, merely to reflect that opinion varies wildly. Gordon Brown spoke to a woman who might have been deemed to be "safe"; a lifelong Labour supporter who listed her concerns. In public, Brown thanked her for her opinions, in private he called her a "bigoted woman", "on everything." Listening to the transcripts it is hard to see how he could have come to this conclusion. Her views did not appear intractable or uninformed, but largely, observational and couched as questions.

It is questionable whether this episode has told us anything we did not know already, which is a shame. There once was a time when we believed anything the elite told us. Now we believe nothing. Both are dangerous.

I end this with a quote from John F J Kennedy, and if he will listen, a message to Gordon Brown:

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men

Dirty Euro

It is sick that some racist old nag who does not even live in this country has had this affect on the campaign. What nightmare. She loves in spain and complains about immigrants.

JONNY

Next time Peter Hyman goes raving mad on Newsnight, can Paxo kindly organise a couple of white-coated male nurses with a straitjacket to wheel him off into a padded cell.
So nice quiet clever Danny can finish a sentence.

Fergus Pickering

Ron Todd, yes, I noticed that too. There pought to be some straw for bricks there, surely.

strapworld

It has hit the news here in Australia!!What a prat!

B U T what has that leader, who has taken the Conservatives from a winning position to a dead heat possibility, got to say about immigration??????

I am damned certain he would have taken the Brown line. It is a conspiracy by all the parties! excepting, of course, the BNP!

Fraser Nelson silenced. Labour and Conservatives silenced. Brown makes a prat of himself and now immigration is top of the agenda.

Will Cameron score this open gaol?? Of course not he will avoid it like the plague.
He is a coward with no right to be called a leader.

Trev

How as this man been allowed to do so much damage to this country???

john miller

Reading the papers this morning, the overwhelming impression I get is that it was, sort of, y'know, OK.

I mean, it's not as though the old bird was a black, or a lesbian or an environmentalist.

We all do this sort of thing so hey, grow up.

The white working classes would appear to need the BNP, because they are held in contempt by everybody else.

Tankus

I wonder if Mrs Duffy or her daughter have recorded their 45 min meeting with gordon ?, thus the wait ...!

Michael Judd

Did any one notice Brown grinning ( or is that his manic smile) as he spoke outside Mrs Duffy's house. Does one normally grin when one is "mortified....or... a penitent sinner..." How insincere can he get?

Greenslime

Having recorded the event on Sky+, I have set playback to constant loop so that I can watch this autistic man again and again.

And there was me thinking that there would never be anyone who could make me laugh more than Tommy Cooper!

Victor Southern

strapworld

I am surprised that from such a great distance you can be an authority on current politics in the UK - I would not even dream of commenting on Australian politics.

However, Cameron does not have an open gaol - that is a LibDem policy. The Labour policy is simply to open the doors to let them all out earlier.

The Conservatives do not subscribe to the concept that all immigration is good. We recognise that too much of a good thing is a bad thing - that is why our policy is to set an annual cap on non-EU immigrants.

It is true that we have been colonised by Poles to a great extent in some areas. My local supermarket now has a special section for Polish food products. The computerised check-in screen at my doctors surgery offers a choice between English and Polish. On the good side most of them are diligent workers. That cannot be said for some other East European immigrants who tend to form gangs and are drug dealers, brothel keepers, document forgers, people smugglers and fake benefit claimants. Those are skills we can provide ourselves.

Andrew

Dear all.

We,the majority,can win the election and the future!

With The elderly now being over 40% of the voters and the disabled and disadvantaged being another sizable chunk with those who look after them included. We have a election winning vote. I don't care who you vote for its your choice but I would just check what their social care plans are first!

I am a carer and approaching a pension. I have fought the system for the proper care for someone I voluntarily care for and have spent my money on doing this. I now get £53 a week and I save society about £130, 000 a year to provide all care except personal care, as I am not related to the person I career for except as a friend.

And I am told by many, they will be cutting social care! If I had a "mote" may be I would throw myself in it and if I had a "duck house" this would be no expense, it would be empty as I would have eaten its contents. ...lol

If we levee the cost on those who make amounts much more that a person needs to have a reasonable life, then and only then it would be a fair society. Where is the politics of care and not of greed in society today!

very best.

PS Want to win an election care for the majority who will vote! Not the apathetic non voters who have it all anyway!

stephen

Just watched Alan Johnson on Sky this Brown saga is getting more and more like Macbeth, the final Act. The knives are certainly out for Brown. Maybe the erudite Richard can tell us if the Roman Ides fall round 7th May?

Roger Davies

According to Mandelslime, not only does Brown having some difficulties in seeing he also has problems with hearing and understanding coherent lucid English. If this is truly the case then the man is not medically fit enough to take on the demands of this job.
My guess is that they are sorry that they were caught out rather than having said what is the standard mantra of the left; "if you are not with us you are ignorant, bad or bigoted".

BGarvie

Nothing can save Brown. He is toast. As Mrs. Duffy's niece stated,"He has shown his true colours. He's always trying to pretend to be so nice and in touch with the people, but he's obviously not."
Dysfunctional Brown does not have the temperament to handle the pressures of the highest office in the land. It is frightening to think he has 'his finger' on our nuclear button. Being psychologically flawed he does not engender confidence. Most of the electorate will do well to reject him on the 6th of May when he will go down to the biggest electoral defeat in history.

Senor Frizby

Brown can't get it right because he is fundamentally always wrong - his private contempt for his core vote shouldn't be ignored.

He's not fit to rule!

TrevorsDen

Indeed Mr Davis - when we had the saga of the scrawled and corrected letters to the berieved - we got it was all down to poor Browns eyesight. Now he is deaf and failed English Comprehension as well.

The truth is he is a witless pillock.

Snowman

Roy Smith @ 10.34:

Your ‘Like Bob the Builder with Obama, it's the little people who show them up for what they are’ fills the heart with warms and a kind of false satisfaction.

Shouldn’t we have a system that goes beyond it, you know, a system attracting a better caliber of people into politics. As you and I know, in many a constituency one can ‘bestow’ the candidacy on a 2-nd hand broom, and it wins.

Logz

"...but also someone who understands the economic challenges we face..."

Oooh! stop it, stop it, hahaha, I cant take anymore...hohoho..really I cant...hahaha!!

Roger Daley

"the mistake I made today"

His only mistake was getting caught. End of.

Any Colour but Brown

"Victor Southern
......However, Cameron does not have an open gaol "

Unfortunately, he doesn't otherwise he could put Brown in and throw away the keys.

Mic

Give a whole new meaning to being duffed up.

Holly ......

Dirty Euro.11.46.
Your comment is exactly why Labour voters are leaving your party.
You also do not get the mood of the country.
It would stand you in good stead to look up the word 'bigot',then have a long hard look in the mirror.
This disgusting attitude of Brown IS his problem,he caused this mess NOT Mrs Duffy.

JONNY

People know strapworld
that the Tories will get tougher, much tougher on immigration.
They don't have to Labour it, it's there unspoken in the national sub-conscious.
That's why Cameron's playing such a clever game. Softlee softlee catchee monkey.

Greenslime

BIGOT = Brown Is Going On Thursday

On an FT blog!!

Ghengis

To add to our pleasure, £12.000 Brown following his meeting with Gillian, approached a teenager upon a railway platform wearing service coloured overalls and after congratulating him for the great service he was performing for us enquired what regiment he was in. Whereupon the somewhat embarrassed youth informed his PM , none I'm a cadet.

John Richardson

'Tiberius'

A good answer.
Though I disagree entirely with both the logic & the sentiment.

Regs.

I suppose we shall see in time who 'The future belongs to'.