British PM apologizes after complaint caught on mic

April 29, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

LONDON

Britain’s Prime Minister blundered into the first major gaffe in his country’s short campaign season Wednesday when an open microphone captured him slamming a voter he’d just been trying to win over.

Brown, apparently forgetting that he’d left a television microphone pinned to his chest, called 66-year-old Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman” as he was being driven from a public meeting where she had needled him on immigration.

Within minutes, the bad- tempered aside had exploded across the British media, and within a couple of hours, Brown was rushing back to her home to beg Duffy’s forgiveness and writing to his supporters to make clear he’d apologized.

All the rest of the country could do was look on as the cringe- inducing drama played out over television and radio. The debacle dealt Brown a big setback on the eve of the last TV debate ahead of the May 6 vote.

Duffy, a retired widow and a self-described supporter of Brown’s Labour party, met with the prime minister at a campaign stop in Rochdale and questioned him about the influx of eastern-European immigrants who have come to Britain.

Many people are angry that immigrants are taking jobs at a time when Britain’s unemployment level is rising.

Brown brushed the question aside and explained that Britons also were working in Europe, jumping into his prime-ministerial Jaguar before complaining to an aide about the awkward encounter.

“That was a disaster; they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It’s just ridiculous,” Brown is heard saying.

Asked what Duffy had said to upset him, Brown told the aide: “Everything. She’s just a sort of bigoted woman.”