“Bigotgate” and the British Election

by Jacob Laksin, FrontPage:

Elitism can be a dangerous thing in politics, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has imperiled both his reelection campaign and the fortunes of his Labor Party after a particularly unflattering demonstration of it.

The British media has dubbed it “Bigotgate.” In one of those unscripted moments that so often spells political suicide, Brown this week suffered a ruinous encounter with a Labor Party voter in the working-class mill town of Rochdale. In the course of meeting “ordinary voters” – part of an electoral strategy designed to make the famously brooding prime minister seem more people-friendly and accessible – Brown paused to talk with one Gillian Duffy. As a 65-year-old widow and lifelong Labor voter, Duffy might have seemed just the kind of constituent Brown needs to burnish his credentials with the average British voter.

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