The over-the-top and partly-confected outrage about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s panning of a voter with strong views on Eastern European immigrants says a lot of things on many levels about politicians and the way people view them.
You’re probably familiar with the story but if not, here’s some YouTubeage of the whole sorry saga, in which a campaigning Brown called a lady “bigoted” and berated minders for exposing him to her in front of the media. Brown’s wireless lapel microphone was still on and the remark was recorded by media.
From a media management perspective, the unfortunate Brown should have known that his mic was still on. Even in the relative chaos of an arranged but unscripted public appearance (always a dangerous scenario), it’s no good blaming your minders if your own discipline slips.
Brown’s bigger mistake was running with a disingenuous line in a subsequent radio interview. His defence that he hadn’t been able to answer the lady properly because he was surrounded by a “melee of press” (that his team had invited) was nothing less than pathetic. The image of him clutching his hand to his head was doubly so.
Whether her views were bigoted got lost in the frenetic backwash of a campaign team in a panic. It was a line the Labour Party obviously thought wouldn’t play well with voters, because Brown quickly apologised for his slip-up.
Contrast Brown’s shattered (and probably tired) radio interview visage with the forced smile and dismissive claim that it was all a big misunderstanding and the scale of his mistake becomes immediately apparent.
Political parties like what they call “clear air” in election campaigns. The term means uninterrupted public space, where the message of the day can be disseminated for hungry swinging voters to pick up and consume. Brown’s gaffe is bad because it was on the eve of a televised debate and has distracted Labour from preparing the ground.
The story is likely to be given iconic status, to be continually recycled by a gleeful media that’s keen to kick an unpopular PM at every opportunity.
If you want a local reference point, recall Mark Latham's aggressive campaign eve handshake with John Howard which was sure to convince swinger voters that the man shaped as a less than measured leader.
It wasn't a campaign killer - Latham was probably dead in the water at that late point - but it couldn't have helped. For one of those, you need to go back to the "unloseable" GST election when John Hewson's birthday cake answer on A Current Affair was the one piece of repeated footage that ensured Paul Keating would be back.
The bigger picture here, however, is that Gordon Brown was caught treating a voter with contempt when her views were more than likely identical to those held by millions of others. That can’t be healthy in a campaign where he was already pushing a large ball of dung uphill with a sharp stick.
Of course, the whole sorry affair won't have gone un-noticed in Australia.
If you'll looking to count the number of uncontrolled meet-and-greets we'll see in the forthcoming election, you'll only need the fingers of one hand that's been in an industrial accident.
What the hell was the PM of Great Britain doing wearing a radio microphone on a walkabout?
This is insane. I don't know the full story but I gather the mic belonged to a TV crew that was following him. Insane again! Why open yourself up to the risk of a negative comment on the walk? (Let alone the stupidity of leaving the thing on).
This is a classic case, I assume, of people bending over backwards to help journos in the mistaken belief it curries favour and may lead to better coverage. Well, Gordon, you got that one wrong.
Posted by: Tony Park | May 12, 2010 at 12:11 PM