A Nasty Gaffe Gord.

Well the Brown stuff has certainly hit the fan for the PM today. After being confronted by 65 year old widow, Gillian Duffy on an estate in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Her conversation (CLICK HERE TO SEE IT ALL.)with the PM revolved around the fact that she pays tax on her dead husbands pension after it was tagged on to hers. How he planned to clear the national debt, and the bit that has caused the controversy, why are there so many Eastern Europeans (in her opinion) "coming over here" (actually the number is dropping.) She says the following:

"You can't say anything about the immigrants! Because you're [Brown?] saying that .... your a." (mumbles something, might be about to say racist but cuts off.)

"But all those Eastern Europeans what're coming in. Where they flocking from?"

Eastern Europe would be a good bet!!

Brown retorts to her that it [immigration in the EU] swings both ways, vis a vis Brits going over there, them coming over here to work etc.

She then asks about why there are tuition fees, and possibly implies that foreign students (it's hard to know if that what she means, so she might not mean that.) are causing financial strain for others.

It is not what she said that has caused the outcry about the story it is comments unwittingly recorded, of which Brown made to his advisers after their talk had ended that have caused the controversy. (Listen to them here.)

Brown is heard angrily muttering that the talk was a "disaster" and "ridiculous" and that she was "sort of bigoted women."

Ooops.

Now Mrs. Duffy's conversation with Brown was rather ranty, and some of her "evidence" seemed to owe more to tabloid headlines than to a general grasp of affairs. Her comments about the Eastern Europeans may not be pleasant to many (though there are quite a few who think the same as her.), and were; like most of what the rest of what she said, a mix of half truths, and stuff she had read in the paper. The comments struck me more born out of taking too much of what you uncritically read about immigration, than pure bigotry. Mix that in with a general dissatisfaction that many working class people have with a political system, and country that seems to cater (in their opinion, and to some extent mine.) to middle classes, and Middle England.

The worst thing to come out of this, and my hunch is that it may bite back at Brown this next week. Is that the press and the BNP will seize on this as yet more proof that the main parties don't want to discuss immigration, and that anyone who does is called a racist. The problem is that the three parties have allowed the press and the more right wing parties to set the debate. We hear the "sponging asylum seeker" and "immigrants ate my granny, and her swans" tales, and not the actual state of immigration. The whole thing has been derailed, and the parties seem timid in trying to recapture the debate. In actual fact they seem to actively pander (well the Lib Dems don't.) to the more lurid anti-immigration tracts. It can be no surprise that anti immigrant sentiment is high if this is the case, and people are only getting that side. This has unwittingly played into the wrong hands, and has almost said "yeah what we say about the parties being out of touch is true." It's a real shame, as Brown (in the video before the "comments") is able to refute some of the more fanciful comments she made, so much so that she seems to falter under how he dissects her points, and they end it on amicable terms. She seems genuinely confused and upset from the unintentionally broadcast reaction. Now more than ever these guys seeking power, need to re engage with disillusioned working people. This gaffe has done precisely the opposite.