Shades of Frank Drebin: Gordon Brown may have sunk his chances in Britain’s general election with an unguarded comment into a microphone he didn’t realize he was still wearing. After campaigning in Rochdale in northern England, he muttered, amid a stream of invective directed at his aides, that 61-year-old Labour supporter Gillian Duffy was a “bigoted woman” for questioning him about the impact on the British job market of immigration from Eastern Europe.
Brown’s since made an in-person apology and e-mailed a fulsome “personal” letter to all Labour activists, but the damage seems to have been done. As one commentator put it, showing a nice grasp of British understatement, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to call voters bigots.”
On one level, of course, it’s possible to have some sympathy for Brown. This is the kind of thing that happens when you’re around microphones so much: few of us would want our every comment recorded and aired in prime time. On another level, as Andrew Rawnsley points out, this is just another example of one of Brown’s more unattractive attributes: his volcanic temper and his eagerness to pour vitriol on his aides and anyone else who gets in his way.
But this isn’t really about Brown’s bad luck or his bed temper. Poll after poll shows that immigration is a central issue in the election, or at least a central concern for many voters. There is every reason to believe that it lies behind the erosion of Labour support in places just like Rochdale, where many — like Mrs. Duffy — believe privately that the Labour elite view their concerns with contempt. Brown’s outburst is evidence that they’re right.
Not that more evidence is needed. Back in October, Andrew Neather, who was closely involved in the making of policy on immigration in the early Labour years, was sufficiently outraged by the televised appearance of Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, to make the following case — and yes, he did think he was making the positive case — for mass migration:
[T]he deliberate policy of ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year, when the Government introduced a points-based system, was to open up the UK to mass migration. …
It’s not simply a question of foreign nannies, cleaners and gardeners — although frankly it’s hard to see how the capital could function without them. Their place certainly wouldn’t be taken by unemployed BNP voters from Barking or Burnley — fascist au pair, anyone? …
I wrote the landmark speech given by then immigration minister Barbara Roche in September 2000, calling for a loosening of controls … the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended — even if this wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. …
But ministers wouldn’t talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.
The only thing more arrogant and out of touch than Neather’s acknowledgement that Britain’s immigration policy was covertly run for the benefit of those who employ foreign nannies was his slap at the “unemployed BNP voters from Barking.” His was the worst possible defense of mass migration into Britain because it was so obviously elitist. And all it really did was display at greater length the contempt that Brown spat at his aides and, unknowingly, into the microphone on Wednesday.
And that is the real political significance of Brown’s open-mike flub: it reminded a significant element in the core Old Labour vote — the vote Labour has to win if it’s to have any chance of playing a role in government-making after May 6 — that quite a bit of New Labour’s leadership quietly detests them and regards them as bigots.
Curiously, the real loser in this may be Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, not Gordon Brown. Neither Clegg nor Brown was ever going to form a government on his own, but Clegg badly needs Labour to do well enough to keep the Tories from winning. Every alienated Labour voter that stays home is another constituency that’s in play for the Tories, and therefore another nail in Clegg’s chances.
This needs to be made clear again and again:
If McCain chooses a pro-choice running mate, he will lose this election. This is not a threat or a speculation. It is a fact.
I cannot fathom that the GOP would throw overboard their most loyal supporters in season and out. The GOP is nothing–nothing–without the pro life movement.
We will walk without a second thought.
Its ridiculous to think that if McCain picks a pro-choice running mate he would lose the election. Remember, Pat Roberston ENDORSED pro-choice Rudy Giuliani for president. Most pre-primary polls showed pro-choice Giuliani in the lead for the nomination. The reason? Rank and file Republicans, including those that are pro-life, recognize that the War on Terror takes precedence over the Culture War. Only the talking heads put unqualified rookies like Pailin and Jindal ahead of Ridge. This is why McCain won in the first place. So, yes there will be a lot of bloviating from the talk-show crowd if a decorated combat veteran like Ridge is picked. But they will be discredited by the base, that will back a McCain-Ridge ticket enthusiastically.
Unqualified rookies??? Jindal, yes. Palin, no. Palin is more qualified than Obama. Far more qualified.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I want Palin. She’s new, fun, fights corruption and sells oil.
Ridge is Linc Chafee with a war record and some executive experience.
We need the pro-life community out in big numbers with big enthusiasm.
McCain is playing with fire. Some of these people will stay home and we’ll be handing the country and the remnants of our prosperity and security to Barry and his saundry miscreants.
No Cavalier, WE won’t be handing the country to Obama, the stay at home pro-life community will be. There are priorities. People who would stay home and not vote for the pro-life McCain because he picked a pro-choice vp are putting the abortion issue before EVERYTHING else. It would be petty and stupid to boot. Because they know what kind of judges Obama will appoint. And they won’t be pro-life.
If so-called “conservatives” stay home because McCain chooses a pro-choice running mate, then they deserve BHO. I am fed up with “conservatives” who are really just staunch anti-abortion catholics (see, for example Kathryn Lopez at NRO, which is becoming more unreadable by the day).
I consider myself a conservative–I believe in a strong defense and unfettered markets. I believe that government should stay out of my life, and everyone else’s lives, as much as possible. While I am “anti-abortion”, I’m not so sure that I am “pro-life”, at least the way that Lopez and Ponnuru would define it. I am opposed to Roe v. Wade, but more from a legal perspective–I think it was bad law.
While I would prefer that Mac not choose a Democrat. Tom Ridge, however, would be a good choice. He was a succesful governor who cut taxes. He was also very popular in PA.
I guess the questions that needs to be asked are “how large is the single-issue anti-abortion vote?” and “would that segment of the electorate stay home and allow someone opposed to BAIPA to be elected?”. I don’t believe that a pro-choice Veep, especially one who is conservative on other issues would be the kiss of death that Lopez, with her tunnel vision on the subject, thinks it is.
If Ridge is chosen, I am certain that he will commit to McCain’s pro-life policies, as George H.W. Bush.
Ridge would be a particularly appaling McCain temper tantrum wiht no governing OR electoral benefit. To the extent he would held snag some small number of blue color voters nationwide that Barry will not already have foregone, such gains are almost certain to be upset by the number of pro-life defections and the intensity of that important group. He might help in Pennsylvania but such help would actually help to swing the state only if the overall election dynamic were such as would make such a swing superflous.
His prospective contribution to governing in terms of ideology and even competance is AT BEST nil. His claim on a future Republican nomination is a horrifying prospect.
Of course if Barry were to choose so impressively complete and incompetent a nonenty as little Timmy, Ridge would win the Veep sweepstakes in a landslide. A truly pathetic gain, that.