Channel 4 runs online poll after Gordon Brown makes on-air ‘bigot’ gaffe
April 28th, 2010Posted by John Thompson in Broadcasting
As former Observer political editor Gaby Hinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) tweeted earlier today, Gordon Brown’s post walkabout gaffe (see video below), in which he called an elderly former Labour voter a “bigot”: “Shows how easy it is to forget the first law of broadcast: even if you’re not on air, if you’re miked up you’re effectively on record.”
Channel 4 News was quick off the mark with an online poll on its live election blog, asking: “Does Gordon Brown’s unguarded ‘bigot’ remark make you less likely to vote Labour?” At the time of writing, the ‘no’s” had a 68 per cent majority but watch that space…
Meanwhile, a spoof Twitter account @bigotedwoman and the phrase “Bigoted Woman” are currently trending on Twitter.
Tags: Bigotry, British people, Gaby Hinsliff, Gordon Brown, Labour Party, online poll, political editor, Politics
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April 28th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
This just goes further to show how Gordon Brown can’t accept anyone disagreeing with him. On news tonight, it was said by one of his ex assistants that this was only a reaction 3 on his scale of 1 to 10!
Whilst travelling a few weeks ago, I heard a local radio giving a woman’s verbal account of a visit to her factory. Apparently he was all smiles and politics, as in this interview, but then got an urgent mobile phone call. Apparently it was some sort of major problem, and he just angrily threw away something he was eating. Apparently it went into one of the factories machines and disabled it!
Can a man like this really be considered again as any sort of viable future leader?
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF HE HAD ATTENDED A MAJOR MEETING WITH A WORLD LEADER, AND HE THEN LEFT SAYING HIS BIASSED PERSONAL OPINION OF THEM ON A LIVE MICROPHONE? Can you imagine the effects if he “slagged off” Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, etc?
April 28th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Hi,
One thing I forgot to mention. On the last televised interview, Brown made a comment to the effect he treated all voters alike, whether “gay or straight”, using those specific words (Please check with the recording, if in doubt)
I am not gay, but I would take offence if I were gay, with him suggesting that I wasn’t “straight”. I considered this to be HIGHLY offensive, politically incorrect in the extreme and also showing him to be incompetant as a politician who has never been voted into the PM seat, nor, I hope is ever likely to be! If you look at the video, his face showed that he thought he had probably used the wrong words, but so far at least he does not seem to have been taken to task on this! Maybe the news tomorrow will latch onto this too?
April 29th, 2010 at 4:59 am
yeah to be honest so what if he said that, i don’t support him, but he did a great job getting his points across in the face of someone who was obviously pretty adamant to neglect most of what he was saying to make her stupid points about her family
(she interrupts him SO many times)
i, and i’m sure most people, would’ve bitched a lot harder once they were in the car if they were in his shoes right there
April 29th, 2010 at 9:08 am
[...] Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s well-reported gaffe yesterday, when he referred to a woman he had just met as “bigoted” in a conversation with an aide that he thought was off air, was broken by Sky News. It was Sky’s microphone as the pool broadcaster at yesterday’s event in Rochdale that was still on and clipped to the PM’s jacket as he let off some campaign-changing steam… As the audio and footage passed into the public domain, it was picked up and aired by other broadcasters and news organisations. [...]
April 29th, 2010 at 9:29 am
[...] in Southampton, former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott takes on Sky News’ broadcast of Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” comments, labelling them as more evidence of “the dying Murdoch empire (…) doing all it can to [...]
April 29th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I don’t think it’s what he said which has caused the damage, bad though that was, but rather the two-faced manner in which he said it.
He was so nice and friendly to her face, but as soon as he thought he was out of public earshot, he was ridiculing her!
As for the way he later he left her house after the apology, quite nauseating actually…