Bigots, apologies, and fuss over nothing

As insults go...it wasn't actually an insult. Today, Gordon Brown's latest stint on the campaign trail hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons as he described a voter in Rochdale - 65-year-old Gillian Duffy - as "bigoted", without realising he was still miked up from an earlier radio interview.

He had spent a minute or two discussing immigration with Mrs Duffy in a visit to her street. By all accounts, it appeared to be going quite well, but as Big Gord hopped into the waiting car he began moaning to an aide about how he should never have been forced to speak to her in front of the cameras, before describing her as a "bigoted woman".

Commentators left, right and centre have been blathering on about how the gaffe (when is this word used in any other context?) has pulled the legs out from under Labour's election campaign, which is probably true if they continue going on about it for long enough.

But let's consider the facts. If you listen to the recording, Dear Prudence doesn't actually slate the woman, or go on and on about it, labouring the point. He just expresses his dismay at her views. That's it.

Meanwhile, the incident has generated a flurry of apologies. Brown apologised during a Radio 2 interview in which he was played the tape, head in hands, before telephoning the woman to apologise shortly after.

Obviously this was deemed to have been unacceptable as he then commanded his driver to throw the Labour Party battle bus into a handbreak turn, in order to go directly to Mrs Duffy to apologise to her in person. For more then half an hour.

He emerged from her modest two-up, two-down, all smiles, and apologised again, referring to himself as "mortified" and a "penitent sinner".

Back in Westminster, Peter Mandelson uttered something approaching an apology, seemingly to counter all the other party's spokespeople literally throwing themselves in front of microphones to add fuel to the fire.

So far, it appears no-one has yet apologised to me. Not that I'm a Labour voter, or particularly deserving of some kind of contrition, it's just that while everyone else is getting in on the act... I'm not holding my breath.

But as I said in my comment on the story on the Evening Standard website earlier today: everybody calm down.

This whole business raises a number of questions, which I will now do my best to answer.

Q: Does this debacle mean Labour will lose the next election?
A: No, that was already quite likely to happen a long time ago.

Q: Is the media scrum over this gaffe justified?
A: No, it was just a slow news day.

Q: Should Gordon offer up Peter Mandelson (or perhaps Jack Straw) as a sacrifice to regain favour with the Gods?
A: Yeah go on, why not?

Q: Will Gillian Duffy be voting Labour on May 6?
A: Don't bet on it.

Angry under-educated resident in expletive-laden email to local journalist shocker

After being on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse from a BNP supporter on the strength of something I posted on Facebook a few months back, I've now had my first angry email from a reader about one of my articles. Notoriety is mine at last.

Leaving aside petty criticisms of his spelling, punctuation and grammar (as satisfying as they may be), what makes it all the more entertaining is that he has no point whatsoever.

Here's the email, in all its inarticulate glory.


Subject: What gave YOU the right to talk total crap on my behalf ?

Wow !! now I know what a total pratt and f#cking idiot low life journalists that work for silly little newspapers like you do !!

DONT EVER EVER SPEAK ON MY BEHALF YOU TOSSER !

Your story on how redbridge dont want Nuclear weapons is sh1t like you..

How many people did you ask ?

What were their ages ?

What area of Redbridge did you poll?

What % of your crap poll said what ?

How many were undecided ?

This is what makes you a f#cking idiot... NO ONE I know wants rid of any of our Nuclear weapons or subs..

What a total prick you are.

Sad that you are just a liar working for a silly little newspaper !

Lets do a poll on what the public think of journalists workiong for 2 bob papers desperate to pull a story ! hahahahaha

And here's the article to which he so eloquently refers.

A print-out of this now takes pride of place on the noticeboard beside my PC monitor, and I now have an abuse folder in Outlook.

And, as my colleague said as we laughed about after it had done the rounds in the office:

1.) He hasn't read my story in full, because it details the sample.
2.) He's getting confused between the messenger and the story.
3.) I must be doing something right to get an email like this.

I am officially worth 0.057 of a human being. Sort of.

After discovering that I should probably vote Green (see last post...), any political engagement I had developed as a result now teeters on the edge of the abyss of indifference - as it turns out my vote counts for pretty much sod all.

I don't claim to explain the maths behind its figures but the Voter Power website takes into account the probability of the seat changing hands and the size of the electorate, to calculate how much each person's vote is 'worth'.

I live in Chingford and Woodford Green - one of the Tory's top seats and one of the safest in the country overall. If my knowledge of politics, such as it is, tells us nothing else then at least it shows that the higher profile the MP, the safer the seat (by and large).

Former Tory leader, 'Mr Broken Britain' and probable future cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith currently holds my constituency and has done since 1992 and most people around here don't have a bad word to say about him.

As such, my vote in the election is equivalent to 0.057 of a vote. That's perhaps not as bad as it sounds, given that the average UK voter has 0.0253 of a vote. Or perhaps it's all just terrible. I'm confused.

Knackers to it, I'm still not going to vote Tory.

Green fever

As the general election looms - in addition to the local council elections for all my fellow Londoners and I, plus plenty more people around the country - my mind has finally shaken off all the usual ephemera it concerns itself with (Do we need milk? Will I have time to go the gym tonight? Why do Spurs break my little heart time and time again?) and come round to pondering the most pertinent topic: namely, who will I vote for?

The date of said election was only announced a matter of days ago but given that it was possibly the worst kept secret in living memory, the parties were only too ready to spew forth a raft of stage-managed public appearances and election promises.

Such is relatively short period of time between now and polling day, I (like a few other million people, I wouldn't mind betting) am already feeling a touch overwhelmed about what specific policies each party plans to put into action during the next 4 or 5 years.

Thanks be, then, for a new website called 'Vote for Policies'. It lays out, point-by-point, what each of the the main six parties (Lab, Con, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP, and Naz...er, sorry, BNP) plan for all the major policy areas, such as democracy, immigration, welfare, the economy, health and education.

Earlier, I took the test and I was slightly surpised, if not exactly bowled over, by the results.

In truth, I'd thought I'd already made up my mind. I can't stomach any more Labour mismanagement, thanks very much, and I'm deeply opposed to the neo-Thatcherite lunacy of 'Call Me' Dave Cameron. Despite the fact that my incumbent Tory MP, Iain Duncan Smith, is sitting on rather a nice majority and will almost certainly keep his seat and become a cabinet minister in the next parliament, I felt my best bet was to vote Lib Dem.

I've met the candidate, briefly, and he seems like a stand-up guy but I'm far more concerned with the policies at a national level than any personality traits I might like in my MP. I'll be using my vote at the local elections to decide on specifically local issues (althought this will more than likely see me voting Lib Dem as well, but there we are).

But the fact that, according to my relatively serious policy decisions on the online test, I'm 55% Green, I might be forced to reconsider.

It's hardly surprising that my views should run roughly along the line of the Green party, as I've become more and more engaged in the battle against climate change in the last couple of years (I've become a bit of a 'Standby Nazi' and continue to infuriate my mother by turning the kitchen telly off at the socket on a daily basis).

Plus, the Lib Dems have always been too pro-Europe for my liking, but I was prepared to take a hit on that single policy area in return for competence with the economy (thank you, Mr Cable) and a bit of detachment from the two parties that have been making a general of a hash of things since I was in short trousers.

So, rather than clarifying exactly who I should vote for on May 6, this clever and informative website has seen me go from being fairly certain to fairly confused.

Such is politics, I suppose.