Gordon Brown’s Jekyll and Hyde moment in Rochdale

One minute Gordon Brown is telling a voter in Rochdale it’s been lovely to meet her and she has a lovely family. The next he is in his car, forgetting he’s got the radio mike on, turning to an aide and saying “that was a disaster,” “you should never have put me with that woman … Who’s idea was that?”

He’s asked by the aide what did she say? Oh, says the Prime Minister, “she’s just a sort of bigoted woman who says she used to vote Labour.”

It is a Jekyll and Hyde moment and the sort of thing that would’ve been Gordon Brown’s aides’ worst nightmare.

Smiling in front of the cameras, warm words then the flash of temper that interviewers will have seen over the years. John Major was famously caught with the open mike problem calling his Cabinet ministers “bastards”.

There have been many exchanges between politicians that get caught on the mike, but this one could be more damaging because it’s an attack on a voter. The Labour Party will have to get some sort of apology together soon and then wait and hope that the woman in question accepts it.

The flash of temper won’t be new to anyone, the whole thing wouldn’t really matter at all if it wasn’t that word “bigoted”. Mr Brown should worry that he comes across as thinking people are bigoted if they don’t agree with him.