Rundle’s UK: Brown gaffes to disaster
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“Look, I was a Communist for a long time and it makes me ashamed to see you wearing red.” It was late into the “question time” meet-the-leaders debate at the Queen’s School, and it was only now really hotting up. With a full hall comprised of the good people of Watford and students and parents of the school, and a panel which had, unusually for election hustings, the presence of the British National Party, the event had a fair degree of heat and light. But it was still, by any standards, painfully civilised. “The bankers caused this crisis but the people being asked to pay for it are in Watford…” Yes, I had finally got to Watford. On the London Overground through the vast hinterlands of British suburbia, places famous like Wembley, and no zones like Carpender’s Lane. You look out at the high street leading off from the station, the row upon row of Victorian terraces, the stacks of public housing, and realise that 200,000 people live here, in the purview of this one station, and you will never meet any of them, and you will never be here again. This is England, a good half of it and thus half of the UK crowded into a small south-eastern corner. It’s a web of high streets, railway sidings, old brick Victoriana, Tescos, car parks and cheek-by-jowl-housing stretched from the South Coast to Peterborough. “Watford was once the printing centre of southern England,” Keith, the convenor of the hustings would tell me later, as we ogled girls in halter tops in a fauxhemian Bounds Green bar. “All gone now.” Indeed. The place is now a feeder for London, its high street deserted by 7pm, with all the action at the Junction — a no-place of chain hotels and business parks. You have to say that if you had your chance to redesign post-war Britain, you wouldn’t turn it into this London-centric urban net, everywhere somehow feeling that life is somewhere else. But there it is. Watford is a three-way marginal, barely 1,500 votes separating the sitting Labour member from the third-place getter. Always dodgy, in the current climate it is utterly uncallable. Claire Ward for Labour, a polished New Labour operator in the aforementioned scarlet business suit, Richard Harrington, a Tory horn-rimmed and blue-suited speaking like a bank manager who isn’t giving you a loan, and Sally Brinton, the Lib-Dem, a large woman who looked like she probably spent a lot of time handing out redundancy notices at a large public institution. At the far right of the table was the United Kingdom Independence Party rep, a man who looked surprisingly normal — no blazer or hound’s-tooth waistcoat and fob, until I realised that he was only the election agent. The British National Party man who listed himself only as Dr Emerson was the single most boring BNP candidate I have seen in my life, a mild accountant type although his posse was a row or two of sinister fat men, back of their necks like roll-top desks, shaved head and steel glasses. You know the look — the kids will be wearing it in 2015. As with all such meetings in this strange, strange election, the possibility of real political conflict was forestalled not merely by the deep and ultimate stultifying spirit of British reasonableness, but also by the lack (among the three parties) of anything resembling a programme, or the political expression of a world view. At Leeds a few days earlier, one man had got up in exasperation and asked why all the candidates were talking either about what they had done, or what their opponents hadn’t, and not what they would do. At which point the Labour member talked about continuing to do what they had done, while the Conservative said they hadn’t done it. Here though, surely, there would be a bit of fire and ice, because the thing was happening mere hours after Gordon’s gaffe, his now famous 30 seconds or so telling a group of advisors, and an un-removed lapel microphone, that he had just spent three minutes talking to “some bigoted old woman”.
Brown had been on walkabout in Rochdale, another place that has suffered from a feeling of epic decentering, a town that would have once been a world unto itself, with one of everything, and is now a part of the great urban web of Manchester. Mrs Duffy had accosted Brown in his walkabout there on a whole range of issues — the deficit, tax, education, etc — and when she finally got full face time she revealed herself as a former teacher of special needs children, and someone not keen on Eastern Europeans. “I don’t tell people I’m from Rochdale, I’m too ashamed of it now,” she said, a quote not getting much airplay in the subsequent report. “I mean these Eastern Europeans, where are they coming from?” Brown, at this point, must have been repressing the urge to say “Eastern Europe, you daft bat” and went into Labour’s response that as many people from the UK have gone to Europe, as Europeans have come here, etc. It was only when he got in the car that he made his true feelings known.
Whether Mrs Duffy was a bigot or not, what she was saying wasn’t racist or racialist. It was simply expressing a home truth that large numbers of people — many of them staunch Labour — simply do not accept the premise on which the open borders regime of the EU is based. In that respect, Brown’s rendering of her concerns as “bigoted” expressed the full divide between the political elite and the punters in one pithy sentence. Quite possibly in a couple of days we’ll find out that she was a “Joe the Plumber” type figure, someone claiming to be an average schlub who nevertheless has a shedful of axes to grind. But until then she’s a special needs teacher whose life the PM dismissed in a single phrase. Man if I were up against Labour in Watford I would have hammered that one home through the whole evening. But one by one candidates ducked the opportunity. No surprises from the major parties — they are all in the business of managing public compliance — but I would have thought the other would have got stuck in. As “Dr Emerson”, a moustachioed suit with a tuft of hair at the centre of his male pattern baldness, started to speak I could feel myself urging him on to get in a punch for goddsake and then realising that I was barracking for the BNP. Mind you, at some point there’s a question as to whether simple human sympathy kicks in. For the enormity of what is being laid at Gordon Brown’s feet is simply astounding. He has led the mighty British Labour party back into the third place slot it emerged from in 1924, a result so bad that no-one had even picked it as possible a fortnight ago. The only thing mitigating that disaster is a low Tory vote, achieved not by Labour but by the Lib-Dems. Everywhere Brown goes his wife stands in the background trying not to look sad, less the look of a concerned spouse than a nurse fallen in love with her dying patient. Brown has presided over a campaign featuring one disaster after another, from identifying David Cameron as Gene Hunt, the charismatically un-PC cop from Ashes to Ashes (the sequel to Life On Mars), to having Brown appear with an Elvis impersonator, and now to Bigot-gate. The last is his own fault, plain and simple. Exhausted he may be, but it’s dotting the ‘i’s, etc, and you can be sure as sh-t Mr Tony would never have done it. God knows what happens when Labour dumps him after the election to put Alistair darling, Alan Johnson or David Miliband in as PM in a coalition. The blood will reach up to the third row of the stalls. So the debate didn’t fire up on that. Aside from a whacky interjection by a social credit enthusiast it wouldn’t shut up, until the old Commie took the mike and gave us all a blast. Lean and stooped, he looked like someone from another era, one of physical work worn in the body. The chair tried to cut him off, but he kept going, putting the basic but unheard argument that the GFC was a bankers’ crisis for which the public was paying hard and fast. When he sat down the kids around him looked embarrassed, but he didn’t care. He’d fired up the quattro. So that was it for Watford. When we left, BNP rowdies were hustling their candidate into the car, security phalanx style, as if anyone gave a toss. The town was quiet, save for the persistent hiss of traffic on the ring road. I’m no wrap for the old ‘Rochdales’ or Watfords worlds unto themselves because no-one ever got out of them, but it’s a measure of what has happened in many peoples’ lives — that is the image of the good society that comes forward, unbidden and unbiddable. And when the last of the Commies go, who will be there to say it could be otherwise? |
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35 Comments
What disaster? As things stand in that campaign, I reckon Brown, should have said “Eastern Europe, you daft bat” patted her on the head, given her a boiled lolly and ended with, “meanwhile suck on that.”
Oh well, maybe Brown could become a Polish hero and be buried in Wawel Cathedral next to Lech Kaczynski.
Stands to reason Eastern Europeans are from Eastern Europe.
Silly old bat.
The ‘disaster’ puts into highlights the disconnect as Guy says between the elites and everyone else the issue of european integration/immigration.
If the plan - from both sides was to avoid the issue, that as failed.
Still don’t know if this will translate into tory votes though.
Loved the simile a shedful of axes to grind..
It might just make Brown … actually calling the silly old woman (even if in the car) might appeal to a lot of people who have to put up with idiocy on a daily basis… I wouldn’t put my money on a Labour Win… but it might be the issue that kills Campbell…. MIGHT - repeat MIGHT….
I don’t know if it will help him but Gordon’s defence is that she actually is a bigoted old women.
I think it was a fair question - there are more than a dozen countries that comprise Eastern Europe. I think it is reasonable to question the PM as to which countries the more than 1 million EE immigratants that are flooding the UK are coming from.
I’m interested to know the answer so why shouldn’t a British citizen be?
I love life imitating art…. harking back to the West Wing eopisode where Bartlett ‘doesn’t’ realise that the microphone is still live and calls his opponent an idiot (in effect). I think the same media strategy they employed on TV should have been wheeled out here.
Media advisor: “the PM is very sorry and apologises to everyone who heard him say the word ‘bigot’. He didn’t realise his microphone was live, and that comment wasn’t intended for the public”.
Don’t apologise for having an opinion, apologise for being a total numpty and not turning off your microphone!
And JPG- why on earth is it a ‘fair question’? Do you expect him to have the street addresses and towns and postcodes of origin of each ‘Eastern European’ person living in Watford? What on earth would that prove, aside from being an astounding waste of resources and time?
What the hell is the fuss over a couple of words, that would hardly cause a ripple if uttered by HM Liz’s better half Phil. The tsk tsk dear oh dear twaddle is coming from the media, particularly the right wing lot. Sky News UK spent half an hour on it at lunch time today.
For mine she was a bigoted old woman, bigoted against Eastern Europeans and is dead set old. Carry on Gordy, nothing to apologise about. Bloody poms, would moan if a fly farted near them.
Flicka, well for a start if 60% of immigrants were coming from Serbia and 4% from Belarus, it might help the govt formulate a response to what is a very obvious problem. Very easy information to find - would take Mr Brown less than a minute on the phone to his Immigration Minister.
Well of course she knows Eastern Europeans are from Eastern Europe - the point is, they’re not from here are they, they’re foreigners. They’re not part of us, they don’t deserve to be here, to take what rightfully belongs to us.
Yes, because the government is going to ‘formulate a response’ to a perceived immigration issue on the hustings, while talking to a silly old bat who thinks people are going to get her because they speak with an accent. And, having worked in an immigration department as DLO, I can tell you that that information (let alone formulating the policy implications of GIVING OUT that information during an election campaign) would take days to obtain and organise. And I very much doubt it would have changed her mind anyway.
Bang on GOG, thats the point of her question. Brown understood what she was getting at and gave her a discliplined answer. His remarks to his staff in the car, were hardly a hanging offence as the British media are making out. She is a bigot, he was more than polite in his description of the ‘old’ dear.
Days Flicka? The competence of our bureaucracy. No wonder you are not working there any more - it took me all of about 30 seconds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Australia
This might get me crucified for saying, but why is identifying someone’s nationality/region of origin a bigoted act? If her observation of the composition of her town is that in the last X years the population of Eastern Europeans has increased significantly, then to observe that isn’t necessarily bigoted.
It’s a lesson to governments that people are pretty much universally change-averse when it comes to their home lives. We can be nursed through the changes and adapt fairly easily if given support, but without that support we tend to get our collective backs up. I can only imagine what it must be like for a woman who likely grew up in an England of tea & scones to be confronted with the rapidly shifting Europeanised demographic.
I don’t think that we should be mocking or deriding her for freaking out a little. Rather, I think it’s a sign that the EU & the English governments have done a poor job integrating their newly blended populations. There are lessons here for Australia too, and indeed any country with high immigration. You can’t just lump disparate groups in together willy nilly and expect it to come up roses, but with care and compassion it can be done.
Who cares about the conversation or immigration? The issue is the absurd whirlwind that is the modern media.
The utter naturalness of a politician having strong political views about the political views of others is turned on its head. A private aside is turned into a public GAFFE, replayed endlessly as gotcha ‘reality’ TV.
And a nation’s leader is expected to supplicate for 45 minutes in the ‘victim’s’ residence, to beg a forgiveness that is no more sincere than if he’d written her a letter apologising for his remarks becoming public - when it was the media that defamed the woman to create a story.
If she wants to know where immigrants come from she could…I dunno…..meet a few and ask them. Shouldn’t be too hard if theres that many of them about.
@ GRAEME ORR agree 100%
@ DANIEL ..that was the guts of her question. She was moaning in a less than tactical way about the Eastern European immigrants and Brown was on to her. He kept his cool until in the car and mildly said what he was thinking. How the term bigoted old woman can turn the poms media on its head, speaks volumes about them not Brown. He should have told his advisors to get nicked about visiting her.
You won’t be crucified by me Georgina Smith - right on, we need to intergrate. Still, Brown can’t win this, he couldn’t at the start of the campaign and he certainly can’t now.
@David ” What the hell is the fuss over a couple of words..”
Ah, the boofhead Left at its best. Its all on show here. Like Obama’s ’ guns and religion’ comment, it never ceases to amaze how the champions of egalitarianism are so dismissive of the common folk, and so very obviously elitist.
What’s the fuss, David? Probably that Gordon said one thing to her face, and quite another behind her back.
And of course, how all very staged managed! “Who arranged that?” asks Brown, after the exchange.
Yea! Who the hell allowed that silly old … to actually get close enough to me to ask that question?
Strike, what do they think this is? Government by the people?
Shes not a bigot, shes a westerner living in a time of western empire decline. She is understandably pissed. We live in an empire of debt and it is on the verge of crumbling. We are facing World Depression 2. Thats right you bunch of dinner party do gooders, she not you is in the right.
Take note, she asked Brown about DEBT. DEBT. She asked Brown about DEBT.
You all have a mocking attitude of this woman. making fun of her asking where are they coming from…
What she means, is not as you indicate over and over literally where, but more along the lines of ‘why is the country in such strife?’
In middle England there are no jobs and the ones who are employed earn 4 Pounds an hour, Polish immigrants flood in and staff the starbucks, locals are living in poverty, everyone is in massive mortgage debt, yet many houses are “underwater” ie mortgaged more than their current value.
Britain Australia Greece USA Spain Portugal, Japan Taiwan China Korea, New Zealand and many other countries are on the verge of utter economic and social collapse and you arrogant dinner party ning nongs have the temerity to bash the old lady for her concerns.
I suppose you guys reckon the skies are blue and property prices never fall?
I see that Pauline Hanson is leaving Oz to go live with the likes of her. Ahahaha.
John James if he had called her a fucking old bigot then all you screaming raving puritanical right wing wowsers would have something to moan about. Grow up and get into the real world you “bigoted pratt” presumably your wife wipes your backside for you. Living with you must be like in a tippy toe fairy land, had any lately or is it self help???????????
Much as I enjoy Rundle, I do not understand the end of the article: “I’m no wrap for the old ‘Rochdales’ or Watfords worlds unto themselves because no-one ever got out of them, but it’s a measure of what has happened in many peoples’ lives — that is the image of the good society that comes forward, unbidden and unbiddable. And when the last of the Commies go, who will be there to say it could be otherwise?”
What does it mean to say “I’m no wrap”? What does unbidden and unbiddable refer to - presumably something literary I have forgotten or maybe never knew. If it refers to the image — the image is certainly biddable. Rundle just brought it forth, right then.
As for the whole beat up with the woman, I would like to listen to her whole conversation with Brown to find out if she really did seem to be a bigot or not. The phrase “where are all these Eastern Europeans coming from” suggests a certain tendency in that direction. And as for Gordon Brown, what comes through is his self-absorption. What a surprise.
OK, the Guardian has more, plus the media following Mrs Duffy and soullessly mining her response. What she actually said was “All these Eastern Europeans what are comin’ in - where’re they flocking from?” With the accent on “flocking”, and the raised pitch of incredulity. And this is in the context of unemployment. So on the basis of that and her age it may seem harsh to call her a bigot. But we have become used to using “bigot” when similar remarks are addressed at minorities elsewhere, so Mr Brown’s choice of words may be understandable. On the plus side for Brown, I think he really did try much harder to connect with Mrs Duffy than he has been given credit for in the media. He talked to her about her grandchildren to her surprise and almost against her will, and even there all she had was a complaint that they were stuck in Australia. And who would complain about that? So it does not really come as a surprise, that Gordon Brown would, after making that effort and receiving such a response, feel frustrated and mutter a few choice words.
It’s a good thing her grandchildren will be going to university.
Of course if all them “Eastern Europeans” were millionaires there’d be no problems. We’re told this is a mobile world and the poor old workers have to be prepared to be flexible if they want to get work, so in the European Union they are being flexible. They get the jobs the locals don’t want or feel are below them (as happens in Straya too), they work hard and (may) earn a lot of money.
During the second world war many similar “Eastern Europeans” ended up in the UK and fought against the Nazis, many remained after the war - usually because they were fearful of what might happen if they returned home. I don’t suppose the bigoted old fools that share Mrs Duffy’s “concerns” think much about that one.
The usual foul culprits in the English media could barely hold their jissom: they are a stinking pissy carcass of comatose reactionary sewage. Sadly they will be hoping there’s plenty of votes in fear of the “other”, those bad, bad foreigners. I hope they’re proved wrong.
On the bright side, it could’ve been a lot worse. “Daft working class peasant. Bloody google it love” and so on.
Duffy: “All these Eastern Europeans what are comin’ in - where’re they flocking from?”
Brown: “From flocking eastern Europe, I suspect.”
Immigration is a massive issue in the UK. The fact that is has not been much of an issue in the election thus far is because the major parties are all more less in the same spot compared to the electorate.
The further you get outside of the big cities in the UK - i.e. the further you get from actual immigrants - the worse the fear of immigration is. Dare I say it, if Rundle went a little further from Soho that Watford he might see more of this apprehension first hand.
The fear is motivated by economic realities faced. Its not even that the immigrants are taking their jobs. The problem is the are no jobs in regional England for the immigrants to take.
Whatever her motivation was, Mrs. Duffy is almost certainly a bigot. Even if you sympathies with her outlook, you can’t seriously argue otherwise.
If Brown had any guts he would have stood by her comments that she is a bigot and explain the reasons why his party has the immigration policies they do. It is only politics which is keeping him from doing so.
^ “The further you get outside of the big cities in the UK - i.e. the further you get from actual immigrants - the worse the fear of immigration is”
Wait until Hanson gets over there. She should be able to whip them up into a frenzy, albeit as an immigrant herself, LOL.
HEY-HEY it is election time wonderous days kissing babies shaking hands telling people how you are going to do good things for them and how their lives are going to benefit under their leadership,, behind the scenes it is different,these rabble are asking me questions I dont want to answer, keep the lousey common public out of my way “unless they agree with me 100%” I am the great man to lead this land!!! we have seen it all before,, NOW YOU ALL KNOW WHAT THESE POLLIES THINK OF THE ORDINARY EVERYDAY PERSON, I wonder where it is different in this world especially as all countries seem to be robbing the pensioners and poorer people to fill up the treasury coffers and the banks profits again,,OH WELL NEVER MIND BROWN HAS HIS PENSION SAFELY INFLATION PROOFED….
@ROZZA Now that you have had your little rant for the day, any thing of value to add to the discussion? Incidently blog edicate defines caps in the body of the message as ” shouting “.
It’s disappointing that Brown was either too slow or too gutless to actually corner the woman in-front of the camera’s calling her a bigot than doing it in the back of a limo.
At least Hawkie had the decency to tell one old man he was a “Silly old bugger” to his face, as did Paul Keating with his “go and get a job” remark a few years back.
Hi Roger sorry for the slip up on blog” edicate” I am of the older type educated English language person,, Does it not seem strange to you that comments on political slip ups and mis - demeaners always seem to end up with immigration topics instead of the prime factor, that the amount of dis-respect that those elected to serve the people show for the average person who put them there in the first place,politics and people are one thing,,politics and immigration are another very serious matter.
“the older type educated English language person” are not what they used to be.