PM commits suicide on air

[dieseltaylor]

Gordon Brown has said he is "mortified" after being caught on microphone describing a voter he had just spoken to in Rochdale 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".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649853.stm

Looks like time to bet on the election!

[ironbar]

The BBC refers to it as, "The bigoted woman slur." Was it really a slur? Didn't seem too much of a pejorative to me.

Of course he's already apologized for, thereby confirming the error of his ways.

[dieseltaylor]

Its probably the hypocrisy of talking to someone nicely and complimenting them and then rubbishing them as soon as they are out of earshot - annoys most people.

1144 BST: Mr Brown gets in a car and is driven away - while still wearing his microphone.

PM: That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman ... whose idea was that?

Second voice: I don't know, I didn't see her.

PM: It's Sue, I think. It's just ridiculous. (Muffled sounds)

SV: What did she say?

PM: Ugh, everything - she's just a sort of bigoted woman, said she used to be Labour. It's just ridiculous.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649448.stm

This is against a background of stacking "public" appearances with Labour Party members. I think this has done incredible damage to the Labour support.

[ironbar]

After hearing Mrs Duffy's 'post slur' comments, yep that is pretty damn ugly. I can see where that won't go down well with the rank and file.

[gautrek]

This is what is wrong with the UK at the moment.If you are worried about and want something doing about the out of control immigration then you are a bigot.If you are worried Muslim extremism you are a racist.

ETC ETC ETC.

I'm sick of it.

[Affentitten]

God it's not like it was some hot-headed profanity on the part of Brown. Is he never supposed to say a bad word about anyone and agree with every one of the hundreds of people he meets every week?

I well remember Bob Hawke in a similar situation walking off from a shopping centre door stop and on-mike referring to the pensioner he'd just been accosted by as a a "silly old bugger".

[Elmar Bijlsma]

God it's not like it was some hot-headed profanity on the part of Brown. Is he never supposed to say a bad word about anyone and agree with every one of the hundreds of people he meets every week?

Well, bigot is a pretty serious remark, unless you happen to be involved in the Operation Overlord planning. Especially because these days it's nearly synonymous with being called a racist. It's a pretty serious disqualifcation. Being called a cunt would be less damaging to ones reputation even if the term is more offensive. Couple that to Brown being all smiles during the encounter, it marks him out as a dishonest twat.

Not only does he promptly apologize, adding to the dishonesty, but I'm well putt off by his other comments in the car. He immediately goes to shifting blame on a staffer. Not a moment of "That could've gone better" but straight to the "Whose idea was this?". Yuk!

Me, I I'm urging on the Lib Dems. Not only is Nick Clegg half Dutch (not a hint of an accent on him when speaking Dutch) but a bit of inter party wheeling and dealing to moderate the political current will do the UK some good, I think. Provided they don't cock it up completely.

[Michael Emrys]

Couple that to Brown being all smiles during the encounter, it marks him out as a dishonest twat.

Actually, it marks him as being a typical politician, the two being more or less synonymous.

Michael

[Redwolf]

The fact that he was probably right doesn't seem to matter in politics anymore

Reminds me of the B5 quote on politics.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The fact that he was probably right doesn't seem to matter in politics anymore

Having listened to the exchange, I can't say she was out of order. She wasn't Mrs Sunshine but instead took a politician to task for perceived failings. That's kind of the point of the exercise, isn't it? You can't call her a bigot just for raising the Eastern European immigrant issue, given that Britain very much stained under the sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of people. It's a real issue. And it wasn't her main point in any case.

Reminds me of the B5 quote on politics.

Do tell.

[winston smith]

Its easy to think that an aide deliberately didnt remove the mic.

I find the notion that some ppl should be excluded from working in one part of the world based on where they were born both illogical & distastefull.

Besides which, many of the E. European economic migrants have returned & were'nt/aren't undercutting the wage rate anyway but actually working better/harder, ..., which I suppose can be seen as pretty much the same thing.

Meanwhile the UK election results are already in. (fanx to some wag over at Fall Fan Central)

Tw*ts 32

B*stards 30

Scumbags 23

Cynics 11

Arithmetically incompetent 5

This would be funnier if it wasn't almost certainly true.

[Redwolf]

Having listened to the exchange, I can't say she was out of order. She wasn't Mrs Sunshine but instead took a politician to task for perceived failings. That's kind of the point of the exercise, isn't it? You can't call her a bigot just for raising the Eastern European immigrant issue, given that Britain very much stained under the sudden influx of hundreds of thousands of people. It's a real issue. And it wasn't her main point in any case.

Fine. It's not that I actually listened to what she said

Do tell.

Sheridan: “If the primates that we came from had known that someday politicians would come out of the gene pool they’d have stayed up in the trees and written evolution off as a bad idea!”

Of course here in America the phrase writing off evolution has an entirely different meaning now...

[dieseltaylor]

I find the notion that some ppl should be excluded from working in one part of the world based on where they were born both illogical & distastefull.

However to carry the idea through one ought to consider if there are any practical limits to the theory. Amount of land per person, housing stock, effects of existing infrastructure etc.

Its alwyas useful I think to start with the extreme view and work backwards. Unlimited immigration from anywhere into the UK. Obviously hugely attractive to people in war torn or economically poor countries. Particularly so if they are told the state provides free health care, housing and food even if you cannot find a job. On that basis we could expect many millions from Africa, and even some from Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh.

Can the UK afford to offer this level of cover and how will it be paid for. Unfortunately when you have to be realistic you have to restrict the inflow to balance what the services can handle and the value that the immigrants add to the tax base.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Yup, there are some very real issues surrounding the sudden immigration of large numbers of people. The raising of such issues is not per definition racist, xenophobic or bigoted. But it often gets portrayed as just that. And that's why the likes of Nick Griffin (another one eyed twat) is able to take the BNP to electoral successes: Many reasonable people with reasonable complaints don't get listened to. So they turn to someone who will listen.

What inferior creatures immigrants must be, that the left feels obliged to rush to their defence the moment any issue surrounding them is raised.

[dieseltaylor]

This recent news makes me very very happy. A jury does the right thing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8652243.stm

[Stalins Organ]

I find the notion that some ppl should be excluded from working in one part of the world based on where they were born both illogical & distastefull.

It is completely logical from an evolutionary point of view - you have your resources, and you seek to ensure that you descendant's keep the use of them - introducing "strangers" in to the environment creates more competition for resources and increases the chance your descenadants may lose control of them.

we are not so far removed from the jungles and savannah's - recorded history is only 5k years, farming is possibly as little as 10k years old - "civilisation", "human rights", liberalism, and "Western civilisation" as we know them today arguably can only be explicitly seen in the last 1000 years, and industrialisation is, of course, only 300 years old.

None of those have done more than scratch the surface of a million years of more-or-less human evolution leading up to them!

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Yup, there are some very real issues surrounding the sudden immigration of large numbers of people.

The raising of such issues is not per definition racist, xenophobic or bigoted. But it often gets portrayed as just that.

Only that the ultra right wing parties base their electoral success not on recent surges of immigrants but on well worn prejudices against well established communities. I.e. The Front Nationale vs. North Africans in France or the "Freedom Party" vs. the Turks in Austria.

I don´t recall the BNP getting 30% of the vote in Britain after the surge of Poles.

[dieseltaylor]

Yosss

I suspect that is because of the first past the post voting system. If every vote was counted and lead to the election of people on the basis of votes received then it would make it more likely for people to vote for what they believe. Currently if you do not vote for one or other of the leading parties then your vote is wasted.

So if the two leading parties decide not to differ on a subject then it is irrelevant what large numbers of the public believe as it will not get aired either way.

[Merkin Muffley]

If every vote was counted and lead to the election of people on the basis of votes received then it would make it more likely for people to vote for what they believe. Currently if you do not vote for one or other of the leading parties then your vote is wasted.

I think the chances of me finding a politician with whom I agree on 100% of issues are nil...unless I was that politician. That would be the case whether there were 3 or 30 different candidates. So obviously I have to make compromises in my vote. And I can be absolutely be certain that my elected MP will also make compromises when he votes in parliament, notwithstanding any genuine promises he made on election.

Anyone would think that the parties themselves don't make compromises - compare and contrast Labour of 25 years ago with today's version; likewise the Conservatives or Liberals/LibDems. They changed their policies to be what they thought would be more populist so that they might have more chance of being elected.

One of the reasons that the main parties get a smaller share of the overall vote nowadays is that they are all fighting in the middle ground. Minor parties now have 10% of the vote - it used to be about 1% in the 1950s.