Gordon Brown calls Labour supporter a 'bigoted woman'

Microphone picks up comments by prime minister about Labour supporter
Gillian Duffy, who had challenged him over the economy

By Polly Curtis

Source: guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 April 2010 13.23


Gordon Brown's election campaign was thrown into turmoil today after he was caught on mic calling a Labour supporter who had challenged him over the economy a "bigoted woman".

Gillian Duffy, 65, heckled the prime minister as he was interviewed live on TV about Labour's plans to cut the deficit, repeatedly challenging him to say he would tackle the debt. Brown ignored her intervention but was then asked by senior aides in his entourage to meet her.

After a few minutes of exchanges she told reporters that Brown was a "very nice man" and that she had voted Labour all her life and intended to do so again next week. But as he got in his car, he was still wired up to a Sky News mic which picked up comments he then made rebuking his advisers.

He said: "That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? Ridiculous."

Asked what she had said, he replied: "Everything, she was just a bigoted woman."

During their exchange she questioned him on pensions, the deficit and tuition fees. At one point she mentioned eastern Europeans in this country but did not develop her argument.

On learning of his unguarded comments Duffy said she was "very annoyed".

She said: "I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but if that's what he said I'm very upset. I'm very annoyed."

Brown later told the Jeremy Vine programme: "I apologise if I have said anything like that. What I think she was raising with me was an issue about immigration and that there were too many people from eastern Europe. I apologise profusely to the lady concerned I don't think she is that. It was the view I objected to."

Before being told of Brown's comments Duffy had said she would still be voting Labour. She told Sky News she confronted him over the national debt and immigration and that the prime minister had seemed "understanding" and responded "pretty well".

But after hearing of his reported comments she said she was "very annoyed" and would not be voting for Labour. "I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but if that's what he said I'm very upset," she said.

The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, said the comments "speak for themselves and the prime minister's got a lot of explaining to do".