So this lunchtime, Gordon Brown was being interrogated by an ordinary voter. Fair enough. But later after getting into his car without checking his microphone was off, was heard calling her a “bigoted woman”. He has already apologised, but the damage has allegedly been done.
It is certainly the kind of mistake no politician would like to make – an easy boost to all the others.
It has been seized on as an example of how Gordon Brown has no sympathy with the interests of common people. Possibly.
But it could also be his way of dealing with stress – to insult someone in “private” (and he thought it was in private) is a way of letting off stream. Anyone who has worked in IT will undoubtedly be familiar with the strategy. And a politician meeting with a member of the public who is asking aggressive and unscripted questions is likely to get a little stressed.
And who is to say he is unique in this ? Gordon Brown has been caught out by making two mistakes – expressing his feelings out loud, and not making sure he was really in private. Other politicians have so far in this election have not been caught out, but who is to say that they do not do exactly the same ?
Looking back a day later, and what now ? I would say that nobody is really interested in Brown’s “disastrous” mistake – despite all the fuss in the media. Is his mistake more an opportunity for the media to make a fuss ? The subject hasn’t come up in conversation and nobody has encountered this page through a search. Perhaps to the ordinary voters out there, there are other factors far more interesting than whether Gordon Brown sometimes is a little less than diplomatic in private (or what he thought was private) ?