UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized "profusely" on Wednesday after he was caught on microphone describing a woman who spoke to him on the election campaign trail as "bigoted."How has this become an acceptable method of reporting on overseas elections?
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One Twitter user, Thermalsocks, said: "Gordon Brown has created a total survailance society. Glad to see he got caught out, now he knows how we all feel."
Another user, urbantaoist85, said: "Anyone else up for making all politicians wear a microphone at all times?" Ririnyan added: "I wonder if that was the final nail in the coffin for Labour this time." Andy_Francis said: "I think GB has just kissed goodbye to any chances Labour had left."
However CupCate wrote: "I'd be more concerned if Brown had said, "What that brilliant woman said about all those damn immigrants, too right!"
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But one Twitter user, SusanCalman, spoke for many when she said: "I feel sorry for Gordon Brown. If people I've met knew half the things I'd said about them when I left I would be stabbed and left for dead."
Update: Here is Andrew Sullivan's (non-Twitter) analysis:
Gillian Duffy is a life-long Labour voter. She doesn't like being called a racist because she worries about immigrants; she's fed up with the welfare state rewarding, as she sees it, the unworthy; she's working class; she's not alone. This is Brown's base. He has essentially attacked his own base in the most condescending two-faced manner possible, on a live microphone, on every broadcast. Imagine if Obama's gaffe about "clinging to guns and religion" had been uttered by John McCain, about his own base. With a week to go.
