It is the lot of politicians to ridicule and be ridiculed.  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been on the giving side of so much hard love in his career, skewering Conservative ministers as a young frontbencher and later making life miserable for Tony Blair, that it is hard to sympathize with the wound he inflicted on himself when referring to a party supporter as a “bigoted woman”.  

His own worst enemy...?

Frowning before microphones and a camera during a subsequent BBC radio interview, Brown placed his head in his hand, perhaps in penitence for his sin, but more likely in recognition of the political hole he had so deftly excavated and made his home.    

Not that the government-owned BBC can be accused of over-playing the dramatic news.  Here was the biggest story of the election campaign, the significance of which was being calibrated both by the number and extent of the apologies issued, and yet the network chose not to talk in terms of Brown’s campaign being “damaged”, “scarred” or worse.  Instead it charitably chose to focus on the injured feelings of the politician: “Gordon Brown ‘Mortified’ by his ‘bigoted woman’ Slur“.  Poor Gordon!

Charitable, that is, to the powerful perpetrator.  To understand why, look no further than the leftist “we know best” philosophy that oozes from both the BBC and the British Labour Party.  Concerns about immigration like those raised by Mrs. Duffy are dismissed by the left as little more than uninformed prejudices.  Restrictive immigration policies, though often popular in developed countries, are typically portrayed as racist and characterized as “bigoted”. 

But behind Gordon Brown’s fight for economic “fairness” – in other words his campaign for equality via punitive taxation and growing dependency on the state – lurks contempt for the opinions of the common man.  Only at campaign time, when everything is reported, does this arrogance have the potential to become visible and create a potential political liability. 

Nonplussed, Mrs. Duffy asked why an intelligent man like Mr. Brown would say such a thing about her.  Perhaps the working class folks for whom Labour claims to speak do not fully understand their complicitous role in socialist democracies.  They are expected to vote the right way and leave party intellectuals to get on with the job of running things.  Working class opinions are just not sophisticated enough to be taken seriously.   

Now, with Gordon Brown seemingly destined to be exiting Ten Downing Street next week, the door is open for Nick Clegg and David Cameron, leaders of the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, to galvanize disenchanted voters.  With Brown down, each can try to outmaneuver the other in the quest to become Prime Minister. 

Yet, as he glances over his shoulder at his irate predecessor, the victor would do well to remember that once he has reached the political pinnacle, there is nobody else left to ridicule and potentially no greater item of ridicule than himself.

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