Brown Bigot

A TV microphone overheard Mr. Brown privately attacking Mrs. Duffy, 66, as a 'bigot' for daring to raise immigration with him - seconds after telling her she was a 'good woman'. A shocked Mrs. Duffy, a widow who spent her career working with handicapped children, said she had been a lifelong Labour supporter but would not now vote for Mr. Brown.

The disaster - dubbed 'Bigotgate' in Westminster - unfolded as Mr. Brown visited a community payback scheme in Rochdale. The two appeared to part amicably, with Mrs. Duffy saying she intended to vote Labour as Mr. Brown retreated to his car.

The Prime Minister's wife, Sarah Brown, spent much of yesterday campaigning in his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency in Fife. Perhaps prompting Brown's criticism that she was a "bigot", Duffy also told Brown: "You can't say anything about the immigrants - all these Eastern Europeans were flocking in."

Gordon Brown's comments this morning, captured by a TV microphone that he didn't know he was wearing as he left a campaign appearance in Rochdale, conform to Kinsley's rule. Pulling away in his black sedan, the prime minister growled that his impromptu exchange with a retired widow named Gillian Duffy was a "disaster" and "ridiculous". When asked by an aide what went wrong, the prime minister responded, she was just a sort of bigoted woman."

If you watch the video, Gillian Duffy certainly does sound xenophobic as she confronts Brown. Short on funds, the Labour party is said to be doing minimal advance work for Brown's appearances. On a day when the Labour leader needed to be picking up votes, Gordon Brown was forced to issue a succession of apologies after a gaffe in which he referred to a Labour-supporting Rochdale voter as "bigoted".

The prime minister's comments were recorded as he left Rochdale, where he had a discussion with life-long Labour voter Gillian Duffy.

Mr. Brown apologized to the Labour Party and its supporters. Journalist Andrew Rawnsley, author of The End of the Party, confirmed Gary Gibbon's remark, that the nature of Gordon Brown's gaffe could have been "much, much worse".

YouGov pollster Peter Kellner said that polling conducted after the publication of Andrew Rawnsley's book, which revealed the prime minister's volcanic temper, showed that people thought Gordon Brown was "strong" - but he was not sure today's revelation would have the same effect.

Peter Kellner said: "The problem for Gordon Brown, for Labour, is this: that even if the effect is neutral on public opinion, that's not good enough. Andrew Rawnsley agreed that Gordon Brown had handled the original encounter with Mrs. Duffy well. The first was Gordon Brown's "apparent disdain" for a voter who raises in a not particularly venomous way the issue of immigration". Andrew Rawnsley thought Mrs. Duffy probably represented the views of quite a lot of Labour voters.