A campaign trail blunder by the incumbent Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown has people in an uproar. After a short exchange with one Gillian Duffy, he called her a bigoted woman and didn’t know his microphone was still on. The resultant Gordon Brown bigoted remarks fallout has not been good for him. At the moment, a hung parliament is a real concern. That takes more than a money advance or two of campaign funds to sort out, if it occurs.
The origin of the Gordon Brown bigoted scandal
While on the campaign trail in Rochdale, a borough of Manchester (evidently there’s a city to go with the football team), Brown had a brief exchange with city resident Gillian Duffy, a retired 65-year-old former council worker. After they finished talking, he went back to his car. He began castigating his aides for allowing the discussion to happen, that he never should have been put in a position to talk to her, and that she was a “sort of bigoted woman,” according to The Guardian. He practically gave opposing candidates a quick payday.
The plot thickens
The first irony is that he was concerned with television crews airing the footage. The second irony, and the large one, is that he said all this, forgetting the microphone on his lapel was nevertheless on. It also just so happens that Gillian Duffy is a thorough supporter of the Labor Party and had voted for Brown previously. She won’t reportedly be doing this again.
Brown tries to brown nose
Prime Minister Brown phoned Mrs. Duffy to apologize personally, as outlined by The Telegraph . Reportedly, she was fuming over the remarks. He tried to qualify his remarks to BBC2, by saying she had things alluding to too many Eastern Europeans moving to Good Britain.
Backfires into the hands of the opposition
A PR nightmare of this sort certainly comes at a most inopportune time. Currently, the Labor (Brown’s party) and Conservative parties are battling to set up a majority, and also the emerging popularity of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats might make establishing a parliamentary majority difficult. A hung parliament last occurred in 1974, lasting for 8 months.
Resources
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/28/gordon-brown-bigoted-woman
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7645072/Gordon-Brown-calls-campaigner-bigoted-woman.html
