As expected, the impact of ‘Bigot-gate’ on the public will be much less than the right-wing media hope.
The Sun newspaper polled this yesterday, via YouGov, but curiously failed to report on it (via Mark Pack):
Gordon Brown was challenged on Wednesday morning by Gillian Duffy, a 65-year-old voter in Rochdale. Mrs Duffy complained about taxation for pensioners, immigration from eastern Europe and students’ tuition fees. At the end of the televised encounter, Mr Brown told her ‘it was very nice to meet you’. But when he got into his car, Mr Brown said – unaware that his microphone was still on – ‘That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman… She’s just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour.’
Which of these statements comes closer to your view:
It’s a storm in a teacup. Mr Brown was simply trying to let off steam in private. We should not think the worse of him: 50%
Mr Brown is a hypocrite – saying one thing in public and the opposite in private. Now we know just how much he despise [question truncated on results sheet]: 46%
The YouGov polling is here.
Even of that 46%, it’s worth remembering that a significant percentage are unlikely to let it affect their vote on the day.
Another significant percentage would have been voting for another political party anyway. People usually interpret events through their prejudices. Those who already hated Brown are more likely to see the incident in a negative light than those sympathetic to Brown
