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Gordon Brown lays an egg of solid fuck
Sexing it up is a good way to attract voters
Catastrofuck in the government! Today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a huge cock up when he, after being filmed talking to an OAP about her concerns (her pension, her grandkid’s uni debt, the Eastern Europeans..) was then caught on microphone in his car calling her a “bigoted woman”.
This issue is a bit delicate. Undoubtedly what she was saying, which basically amounted to ‘Eastern Europeans come here to scrounge off benefits’, WAS bigoted. This is the basic level of racism that is on display throughout the whole of society, you come across it all the time. Does that mean it’s her fault, or that she is a nasty person? Not really. These views are supported and perpetuated by the government and the main opposition parties all the time, and it plays into the hands of far right parties like the BNP and UKIP. Just look at the way our own government treats asylum seekers in this country, and the language that has been used to discuss immigration throughout the election debates – the system isn’t trying to challenge racist ideas, it’s trying to pander to them and perpetuate them. If someone holds a bigoted view, does that make them a bigot? Not really – if your only reference point for what is going on in your country is the media, particularly the tabloids, then you’re having that view pumped into you day after day. I’m certain that this woman isn’t a hateful person, just misinformed.
So on one level it’s a good sign that our Prime Minister recognises that this sort of view is wrong – you can bet your last cigarette that David Cameron would never be caught on tape making a blunder like this, because he more than likely agrees with the view of this woman. On one hand that makes him a man of principle. On the other hand, it makes him completely full of shit. He doesn’t agree (at least to an extent, as far as we’re now aware) with this sort of casual racism, he knows what the word bigoted means, yet he’s still willing to push this ‘we must be tough on immigration/benefit scroungers/whatevs’ line that we as socialists know amounts to racist horseshit. Desperate, is what I’d call him, especially after seeing his snivelling apology. How we deal with racism in society is both more nuanced and more simple than hiding in your car and calling people bigots – we have to recognise that there are deep seated societal issues, mostly led by the fucked up control that the media has over our political experiences, which lead to people coming to hold these views. But also, for the government the solution is simple – stop telling fucking lies to support and pander to this shite. You’d think not lying would be a pre-requisite for huge fucking governmental responsibility.
What bothers me about this whole ‘blunder’, is how everyone is so concerned about haranguing GB for not being polite to an old lady, but none of the media seem to be bothered that what this really exposes is the extent to which elections and the government in general aren’t about principles – it’s solely about stage management. It only takes a gaffe like this to show you how fragile the whole thing really is. Let’s recap for you here: Prime Minister is ambushed by TV cameras just waiting for him to fuck up, Prime Minister says a few things that are either excruciatingly vague or he doesn’t really agree with, Prime Minister forgets to take microphone off in car, Prime Minister says what he really thinks (and undoubtedly wasn’t even smiling in the car behind the scenes, the fucker), media goes apeshit and handily happens to still be near the wronged pensioner at the time, Prime Minister grovels.
It confirms what we’ve long known: that The Thick of It actually is just a documentary.
Here we see what happened when Peter Mandelson found out about the catastrofuck:
In fact, this whole thing just reminds me of a certain factory visit undertaken by our good friend Hugh Abbott.
This is a fucking brilliant article.
Nice to see someone cutting through the bullshit for once.
When ye actually listen to what the women said, she didn’t go on and on about immigration – she made an offhand comment which isn’t at all uncommon from what you hear on stalls, public meetings etc here. Most of the stuff she talked about was reasonable but Brown just dismissed her as a “bigotted woman” despite the fact she said she would still vote Labour at the end.
Most concerns about immigration aren’t based on people intrinsically hating foreigners, but on class concerns like housing, jobs, services etc. You can’t blame the mass unemployment in the UK just now on immigration, cos most of the time during mass immigration unemployment in the UK was pretty low. But the fact that you can get a ‘reserve army of labour’ of cheap Polish or other migrant workers does mean some unscrupulous employers will use that to keep wages low.
Ultimately though, theres two people who decide how much you get paid – the govt who decides what the minimum wage is, and the employer who decides whether to pay you that or something higher, and thats who the fire should be directed against.
Great article Sarah… But, just to be a pest, I’m not too sure I agree with the bit when you say:
‘Undoubtedly what she was saying, which basically amounted to ‘Eastern Europeans come here to scrounge off benefits’, WAS bigoted.’
I have to admit, at first I agreed with you. And Brown. But actually, the only thing she said was actually: ‘You can’t say anything about immigrants … All these eastern Europeans – where are they coming from?’
Actually, she says nothing about benefits. Or scrounging. She is a Labour supporter, and it is a bit much to read into those comments that she thinks that people from Poland, Slovakia etc. are scroungers, so I think you’re being a bit unfair to her. I agree with everything you’re saying about the media, the fact that the media has completely ignored that what the woman said is, at least, questionable and offensive in itself to some people. But I’m just trying to be a bit cautious I guess. Like you say, low-lying racism is everywhere, created by poverty, the vast majority of people being ignored by politicians and the media. She does say ‘you can’t say anything about immigrants’ which suggests to me this woman feels more ignored and isolated rather than actually bigoted. To argue that she is ‘misinformed’ is a bit like crying ‘false consciousness’… From my experience, simply trying to argue with people to win them round to your thinking on immigration can nigh on impossible. I’m not sure how to best deal with this, and I’d be curious to find out what others think about this. But I just thought this was a point worth raising
Hehe Andy, seems like you read my mind. And are quicker at typing…
Straight before she brought up Eastern Europeans she was talking about benefits scroungers, that’s what led her on to it.. Maybe they were unrelated but I didn’t think so when I heard it. Good point though! I was trying quite hard to not be offensive in this article cause there’s obviously both sides that I have sympathies with.. i.e. the people that are saying ‘but what she said was racist!’ and the people that are saying ‘she was raising her genuine concerns’.
Here’s the video – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649308.stm
What she said was:
Woman: The three main things I had drummed in when I was a child was education, health service, and helping people who are vulnerable. But there’s too many people who aren’t vulnerable, but they can claim, the people who are vulnerable can’t claim, can’t get it.
GB: But they shouldn’t be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more, if you’re unemployed, you’ve gotta go back to work.
Woman: It’s, it’s, you can’t say anything about the immigrants because… they’re saying that you’re a.. But all these Eastern Europeans what come here, where are they flocking from?
GB: *Incomprehensible*.. British people have gone into Europe, there’s a lot of British people staying in Europe as well.
To me, that sounds like it was the same conversation. I don’t think it was a coincidence that she brought up Eastern Europeans right there. I think she was trying to make a point about how she feels that Britain is swamped with immigrants who claim benefits while British people can’t get dole money when they genuinely need it. I think that’s what she was trying to say, although I could be wrong.
I think it’s quite a sad video really. Clearly this woman isn’t a nasty person. She believes in the old Labour party, the welfare state, helping those in need. But she’s been disappointed by them, and in the absence of a Labour party she can believe in, she’s fallen into the trap of believing immigration myths, believing that immigration is at least partially to blame for the problems of poverty and deprivation created by capitalism and the right wing parties in charge of Britain. I think the Labour party have a HUGE part to play in this situation arising, and that makes me really sad, and I hope GB’s mishandling of the situation doesn’t lead to this woman and people in similar situations moving politically to the right – the opportunity is there to be exploited by bastards in politics and the media.
Sweet article Sarah. It’s such a farce when one slip of the tongue like that has Gee Bee under siege, but he can openly be a cunt to the whole of the UK without a question…
Excellent article, Sarah – and all great points.
I think this also exposes something else. The power battles behind the scenes. This Labour article sums some of this up, http://www.gofourth.co.uk/you-cant-buy-our-election-murdoch as well as this SSP article http://eastdunbartonshiressp.blogspot.com/2010/04/it-was-son-wot-lost-it.html
What also happened here was a case of Murdoch’s revenge. Brown was caught out in a way that is kind of an unwritten “breach of conduct”. The press don’t do this kind of thing. Sky did today – and had reason to.
Not only was this a turning point and an upping of the game by James Murdoch, who was under pressure to get results after persuading his father to throw millions behind the Tory campaign, but also a complete surrender by the BBC. The BBC carried the “bigot” remark first to Brown (on the Jeremy Vile show) and then News 24 running it as their only story from 11am to 6pm solid almost as a sister station to the despicable Fox like Sky news. Of course this is because the BBC MUST cosy up to the tories, and don’t have to cosy up to labour because of the way it is funded (That fuck Nick Robinson and his rt wing minions had a field day). Cosying up to the Tories is more in the interests of the BBC Trust than to Labour who have, regardless of how we as left socialists think of them, and even though they are creating markets within the structures of the BBC, a committment to the way the BBC is funded.
Yes, condemn- nay SLAM Labour for Brown and his political elites first exposure to the results of their disgusting “British Jobs for British People” sloganeering, but also recognise the fact that this was more than a firing across the bows by the Murdoch empire – the people who want not only the Tories in power, but to obliterate tthe voice of dissent (ours).
10/10. This made me smile when i came home from work.
http://cheezburger.com/View/3466488576
Epic facepalm.