Brown's bigot blunder

Tripped by his own bad temper... oops, what a giveaway

Well, he did say he wanted to pep up his campaigning style and – credit where due – Gordon Brown certainly did that.

He insulted a loyal Labour voter by calling her a bigot after she’d questioned him on immigration policy.

That’s the trouble with taking your campaign to the common people. We’re all commoners and tend to ask common questions – you know, the kind that aren’t scripted by spin doctors.

Gordon didn’t like it. Neither did he like Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale lady who questioned him – which was a shame because she was one of his biggest fans.

At least she was until she heard him broadcasting to the world his offensive comments about her – silly man forgot to take off his microphone. Then she changed her mind.
Gillian Duffy doesn’t like Gordon much at all now. He lost her vote... by being himself.
Something had to give at some point. This dull, minutely stage-managed election campaign had to show a spark of electric sooner or later. If the spark proves to be the one that burns Brown down and out, he has only himself to blame.

And other party leaders needn’t take comfort from his misfortune. They’ve worked as hard as he to give away nothing but that which has been prescribed by speech writers and image spinners. The key being to tell us nothing.

One slip of au naturel was enough to trip up Brown and land him in a pit of dangerous humiliation.

His corker of a gaffe gave insight into the character of a man who wants his own way, insists on controlling every situation and looks for someone else to blame when he gets things terribly wrong.

Not good at all. But at least we’ve seen it for ourselves now.
What’s hidden behind the masks of David Cameron and Nick Clegg – who bears a worrying likeness to Alastair Campbell – is yet to be exposed.

It’s a great pity the party leaders can’t just back off, stay indoors where they can do least damage and leave the real job of fighting and winning this election to the hard-slogging, honestly motivated candidates they constantly undermine.