Brown's mask slips as he calls pensioner a 'bigoted woman' - VIDEO

A PENSIONER was branded "a bigoted woman" by Prime Minister Gordon Brown today after she tackled him on immigration, benefits, the national debt and tax policy.

The Premier's unguarded comments came as he left a campaign visit in Rochdale, where Gillian Duffy had approached him in the street to ask her questions.

As he sped away with a radio microphone still attached to him, he told an aide: "That was a disaster - they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous."

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Asked what she had said, he replied: "Everything, she was just a bigoted woman."

Mr Brown later used a radio interview to apologise publicly to grandmother Mrs Duffy for his comments, saying: "I do apologise if I have said anything that has been hurtful and I will apologise to her personally."

He telephoned her after the interview, to make good on his promise, according to a spokesman for the Premier.

Mrs Duffy, 65, approached Mr Brown as he prepared to leave what should have been a routine visit to a community payback scheme.

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She tackled him on a series of issues including the national debt, taxes, student financing and immigration.

During their apparently good-natured exchange in the street, Mrs Duffy told the Prime Minister: "You can't say anything about immigrants."

She added: "All these eastern Europeans - where are they coming from?"

Mr Brown said a million people had come from Europe but another million Britons had moved the other way.

Mrs Duffy also complained about people on benefits.

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"There are too many who aren't vulnerable and they can claim, and people who are vulnerable can't get claims - can't get it," she said.

Mr Brown said: "But they shouldn't be doing that. There is no life on the dole for people any more."

As he went to get into his car, the Prime Minister told her: "Very nice to meet you, very nice to meet you."

But seconds after his limousine's doors slammed shut, he made his unguarded comments.

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Mrs Duffy, who has a daughter and two grandchildren, told reporters she used to work with handicapped children for Rochdale council before she retired.

Her husband, who was a painter and decorator, died of cancer four years ago.

Before she was aware of the Premier's remarks about her, she told reporters she was a lifelong Labour voter and said of Mr Brown: "He was very nice."

After being played the Prime Minister's comments, Mrs Duffy, looking surprised and upset, said she was "very disappointed", adding it was "very upsetting".

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She went on: "He's an educated person, why has he come out with words like that?

"He's supposed to lead this country and he's calling an ordinary woman who's just come up and asked questions what most people would ask him - he's not doing anything about the national debt and it's going to be tax, tax, tax for another 20 years to get out of this mess - and he's calling me a bigot."

She said she would not now be voting in the General Election.

Pressed on whether she still wanted Mr Brown in No 10, she said: "I'm not bothered whether he does or not now. I don't think he will."

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She urged the Prime Minister to go out among the public and "find out what's going on in our lives".

She said she had not planned to speak to Mr Brown but saw him "walking up the street" and thought she would ask him what he would do about the national debt.

"I thought he was understanding but he wasn't, was he, the way he's come out with the comments."

Mr Brown was made aware of his gaffe as he was en route to be interviewed by BBC radio presenter Jeremy Vine.

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The Prime Minister said on his show: "I apologise if I have said anything like that. What I think she was raising with me was an issue about immigration and saying that there were too many people from Eastern Europe in the country.

"I do apologise if I have said anything that has been hurtful and I will apologise to her personally."

Mr Brown was then played a recording of his comments, and asked if Mrs Duffy had not been entitled to express her view.

He said: "Of course she is allowed to express her view and I was saying that. The problem was, I was dealing with a question she raised about immigration and I wasn't given a chance to answer it because we had a whole melee of press around her.

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"But of course I apologise if I had said anything that has been offensive and I would never put myself in a position where I would want to say anything like that about a woman I met.

"It was a question about immigration that I think was annoying.

"I am blaming myself and I blame myself for what is done.

"But you have got to remember this was me being helpful to the broadcasters with my microphone on, rushing into the car because I had to get to another appointment.

"They have chosen to play my private conversation with the person who was in the car with me. I know these things can happen. I apologise profusely to the lady concerned.

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"I don't think she is that, I think it was just the view she expressed that I was worried about that I couldn't respond to."

After his public apology, Mr Brown spoke to Mrs Duffy by phone, then visited her house for a meeting lasting 39 minutes.

He then told waiting journalists that she had accepted his apology for his unguarded remarks.

He said: "I am mortified by what has happened. I have given her my sincere apologies. I misunderstood what she said. She has accepted that there was a misunderstanding and she has accepted my apology.

"If you like, I am a penitent sinner."

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Mr Brown continued: "Sometimes you say things that you don't mean to say, sometimes you say things by mistake and sometimes when you say things you want to correct it very quickly.

"So I wanted to come here and say to Gillian I was sorry, to say that I made a mistake, but to also say I understood the concerns she was bringing to me and I simply misunderstood some of the words that she used."

There was no word from Mrs Duffy, however. A Labour press officer told the waiting press pack: "She just wants you to get off her drive."

Chancellor Alistair Darling stressed that Mr Brown had apologised for the incident and said the Prime Minister knew "he shouldn't have said it".

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He told BBC Radio 4's The World At One: "He has apologised, that apology is profuse and I think he is well aware of the fact that he shouldn't have said this.

"I know the lady concerned is upset for understandable reasons, but the Prime Minister has apologised."

Asked if it would have a big impact on the campaign, Mr Darling said: "I think the election campaign will be decided not just on individuals but it will be decided on what the party stand for."

Mr Darling dismissed as "nonsense" claims that the incident would give ammunition to critics within Labour who wanted to get rid of Mr Brown.

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"Gordon is a man of considerable strengths and considerable resilience and of considerable substance," he said.

"This is something that he knows he shouldn't have said. He has apologised for it but I think and I hope people will judge him in the round."

He added: "This has happened, he has apologised. We need to move on because there are other big, big issues that need to be discussed and I just hope the lady concerned will accept Gordon's apology."

Labour's campaign chief Lord Mandelson said there was "no justification" for Mr Brown's words, but insisted he was just letting off steam and did not believe Mrs Duffy was a bigot.

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The PM was "mortified" at what he said and "upset" about the hurt he had caused to the pensioner, said Lord Mandelson.

The Business Secretary said: "I have spoken to the Prime Minister by phone and you will understand that he is deeply upset by the hurt caused to Mrs Duffy.

"These are not his views, either publicly or privately. He has explained that to Mrs Duffy and has apologised unreservedly as you would expect him to.

"There is no justification, but you know, politicians are human and they have these conversations and they have these encounters. They then get into a car and they say things in the heat of the moment.

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"All of us sometimes do say things that we simply do not mean and the moment we have said them, we regret it deeply."

Asked whether Mr Brown was blaming his close aide, Sue Nye, for putting himself into a difficult position or broadcasters for transmitting his private comments, Lord Mandelson said: "I talked to Gordon immediately afterwards and he certainly wasn't blaming anyone else, other than himself."

And asked if the comments were a reflection of how tired the PM was in the midst of a gruelling election battle, Lord Mandelson said: "I think we are all slightly tired, it's been a very long campaign, but that isn't any excuse for letting off steam as he did.

"I'm afraid we are all human and we do say things that we don't mean, we do say things we don't believe. You don't expect them to be picked up by a microphone...

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"It is very regrettable he did, given the presence of a microphone, and there is no justification for it."

Health Secretary Andy Burnham also defended the Prime Minister.

Asked on BBC2's Daily Politics if Labour would lose the election thanks to Mr Brown's gaffe, Mr Burnham said: "I don't accept that at all - all us politicians face difficult moments... and the Prime Minister has done the right thing and apologised immediately.

"We're all only human, believe it or not, and I think at times we make off-the-cuff comments that we regret afterwards.

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"This was a regrettable incident. The Prime Minister recognised he said something - I think he misunderstood what was being said - and apologised for the words and any offence he'd caused."

Lord Mandelson gave a series of media interviews as he arrived to speak to the Institute of Directors at the Royal Albert Hall, making him late for his address to business leaders.

As he told one TV interviewer that Mr Brown had said something he did not believe, one businessman attending the conference as a delegate gestured to his nose and mouthed the word Pinocchio.

Lord Mandelson said Mr Brown was not just a "man of political conviction but a man with a deep sense of moral purpose as well".

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He told Sky News this was why "it would upset him so greatly that, in the heat of the moment, he has in a sense betrayed those views... and given a completely different impression".

He added: "I'm sorry but these things happen occasionally when you say things you don't mean."

Asked whether Mr Brown would give Sky News its microphone back, he said: "I should think he'll let you have your microphone back, he might even wish you'd kept it to yourself in the first place."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg told Sky News: "I think Gordon Brown has apologised. Quite right too, because if you are answering people's questions, you have got to answer those questions with a sense of respect, whatever you think of them, not insult them.

"He is right to have apologised."

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Asked if he had sympathy with Mr Brown, Mr Clegg said: "I think everybody in every walk of life would sort of mutter things underneath their breath which they wouldn't want everyone to know about.

"But I do feel that, in an election campaign in particular... you have just got to give as good as you get but you have got to treat whatever questions you receive with the respect they deserve."

Mr Clegg added: "I certainly think that saying something which is clearly fairly insulting to the lady in question is not right, it's not right at all."

Asked if Mr Brown was "duplicitous", he said: "Look, I am not going to start hurling abuse at my opponents. He is right to apologise because, when people ask you questions, whatever you think of the questioner or the question, you have got to treat them with respect and give a straight answer."

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Mr Brown faced a barrage of questions from journalists when he arrived at Mrs Duffy's house in Rochdale to apologise in person.

He stepped out of a Jaguar to reporters shouting "has this ruined your campaign?" and asking if he regretted calling Mrs Duffy a bigot.

The Prime Minister made no comment as he walked up the garden path and through the white front door for the private meeting.