Across the pond

The great clunking fist has put his foot in it again. But this time it is difficult to see how he can recover. Which would be a great pity. For British political life if the mainstream media decide that this most important election has been lost by one gaffe on the campaign trail. But  it would  be a sort of poetic justice for Brown. Because it was the Sky microphone that he forgot to take off before he got into his car. And his greatest political crime has not been ignoring the needs of traditional Labour working class voters like Mrs Duffy, but by cosying up, first as Chancellor, then as Prime Minister to Rupert Murdoch,  the Lord of Sky, Fox, The Sun, The Times, etc, etc.

Brown in his policies has not been unkind to the poor and unpriviledged. But he done nothing at all to prevent the super rich taking home far bigger salaries and pensions, vastly increasing their rewards, beyond those of the vast army of the middle classes.

University vice-chancellors now earn three times as much as they earned in 1997. A few stars in the university sector have salaries in line with them. But the quality of education depends on the individual efforts and the vast army of university teachers, who work lots of unpaid over-time teaching the students, not  those university professors, who are in the business to pursue their own research and regard teaching as an irksome task diverting them from their main aims.

But what is clear is that Brown had not heard properly what Mrs Duffy was saying, neither the content, nor the music. So in what he thought was a private conservation in his car, his ire was not directed at Mrs Duffy, so much as at his own aides. For choosing the wrong people for him to meet!

This exposures one of Brown’s real weaknesses. He is not good at person to person communications. And  he is very bad inded at judging them.

So in this case, he thought he had been harmed by this encounter.

Whereas Mrs Duffy was quite pleased with it. Which is one reason why she was so gob-smacked when the press told her that the PM thought she was some sort of bigot.

The real villains of this particular  gaffe are the Labour Party strategists who decided on putting Brown at the forefront of the campaign trail, not making speeches but going to carefully orchestrated tea parties, with carefully selected participants.

In fact, as anyone who has ever worked for him will tell you, Brown is not very good at small talk not very good in treating people who are his supporters.

The Labour spin machine devised the campaign on showing his warm carining side (which of course does exist).

But what he is good at is punching at heavy weights. He is a bit of a bully. And he does pack a big punch.

In this last week, they should keep Brown away from the Labour faithful and let his enemies have a go at him.

But, of course, the strategists are waiting for tonight’s debate.

Like me.

The subject is the economy. But even David Dimbleby will not be able to keep immigration off the agenda. So Brown, who knows far more about economic matters than either Cameron or Clegg is batting on his favourite wicket. But he can expect some ticklish moments.