VOICES FROM THE INTERNET Truth revealed Gordon Brown has said he is “mortified” after being caught on microphone describing a pensioner he had just spoken to as a “bigoted woman”. Gillian Duffy, 65, had challenged him on issues including immigration. As he got into his car, he was still wearing a broadcast microphone and was heard to say “that was a disaster”. Mr Brown later went to Mrs Duffy's house in Rochdale to apologize and sent an e-mail to Labour activists to say he “profoundly” regretted his comments. After spending more than 40 minutes talking to Mrs Duffy, the prime minister said: “If you like, I'm a penitent sinner. Sometimes you say things you don't mean to say, sometimes you say things by mistake and sometimes when you say things you'll want to correct them very quickly. “I wanted to come here and say to Gillian that I was sorry, I had made a mistake, but also to say I understood the concerns she was bringing to me and I had simply misunderstood some of the words she had used.” He had already phoned Mrs Duffy to apologise after the tape was played to him during a BBC Radio 2 interview. After listening to the recording, with his forehead resting on his hand, he said: “I do apologise if I've said anything that has been hurtful.” The comments were made after the conversation with Mrs Duffy which ended with him complimenting her and her family. As he went to get into his car, Mr Brown told her: “Very nice to meet you, very nice to meet you.” But off camera, and not realizing he still had a Sky News microphone pinned to his shirt, he was heard to tell an aide: “That was a disaster - they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous...” Asked what she had said, he is heard to reply: “Ugh everything! She's just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean it's just ridiculous. I don't know why Sue brought her up towards me.” If you ever had doubts about what the people with power, the psychopaths, think of the ordinary people, here you have it revealed in quite a plain language. Read it once or twice, read it slowly, let it sink. And then realize what kind of people govern our world these days. No wonder this world is on the brink of self-destruction. Mrs Duffy said after hearing of Mr Brown's comments: “I'm very upset. He's an educated person. Why has he come out with words like that? “He's supposed to be leading the country and he's calling an ordinary woman who's come up and asked questions that most people would ask him... It's going to be tax, tax, tax for another 20 years to get out of this national debt, and he's calling me a bigot.” This bright lady has captured the core of the issue with her very insightful comment. Let this incident be a reminder of the true nature of the democracy and the government, be it in UK, EU, USA or elsewhere. – sott.net It may help Brown My first reaction upon reading about Gordon Brown's “bigoted woman” gaffe was, “but what if she is bigoted?” My second thought was, “this will probably work in Gordon Brown's favor.” After all, it wouldn't be the first time the media got a tad over-excited when criticising Gordon Brown, only for it to work in Brown's favor. Just remember back to the faux furore over his handwriting. Then there were the bullying allegations which could have been so damaging for Brown but ended up being more damaging for a charity. It turns out that, although she perhaps is not a full-scale bigot, Gillian Duffy's views certainly head towards that zone. Her anti-immigration rant was a pretty typical ill-informed platitude. The nadir was her asking “where all those eastern Europeans are flocking from,” to which the answer is, of course, eastern Europe. Even so, this is nonsense the like of which we probably all hear every day, be it in an overheard conversation on the street or one of those mad phone-in bigot-magnets that radio stations love to broadcast every morning. In that sense, it was over-the-top of Gordon Brown to call her bigoted, although I would probably have been thinking the same myself. – doctorvee.co.uk Ridiculous? It had to happen. Put Gordon Brown with ordinary members of the public and it was bound to end in tears. He has just been caught on mic calling a woman he had just had an encounter with a “bigoted woman”. Her crime was to question him about core Labour party policies. She had always voted Labour but was deeply unhappy. In the clip I heard, she said nothing which could be said to be ‘bigoted'. Interestingly, Brown's first instinct was to cast blame to whoever had got him to talk to her. He called it “ridiculous”. It will be interesting to see what fallout there is for this. Sky and the BBC News Channel have gone into overdrive on it, and I am sure the tape of the comments will be repeated hundreds of times over the next 24 hours.
