#oneaday, Day 101: You’re A Bigoted Nazi And I Hate You, You Twat

Election news, and this happened today:

Yes, for those of you who haven’t been on the Internet at all today, Gordon Brown made a somewhat embarrassing gaffe when he inadvertently left his microphone on after a televised interview with a voter from Rochdale. Voter in question, one Gillian Duffy, was somewhat outspoken about her opinions, having been a Labour voter all her life, and raised a concern over the number of Eastern European immigrants coming into the country. It wasn’t quite a full-on “they’re coming over here, stealing our jobs” Daily Mail rant, but Gordon clearly thought it could potentially get into that sort of territory, looking visibly uncomfortable as he attempted to reassure her.

Then, when leaving the scene, his microphone was left switched on, allowing the general public to hear him pronounce the meeting as a “disaster” to his aides. He noted that they “should never have put [him] with that woman” and demanded to know “whose idea was that?”

When questioned on what she said that offended him so, his response was “Oh, everything… she’s just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour, I mean, it’s ridiculous.”

Now let’s give Gordon a bit of credit here. He’s showing himself to be a human. This is something of a rarity. Who hasn’t had a good rant at colleagues after dealing with a particularly difficult customer? The difference here, of course, is that the rest of us don’t have radio microphones. Nor are we under constant scrutiny from the press and public alike. The most we have to worry about is whether or not our boss is following us on Twitter. (If they are, block them now. Seriously. And don’t even think about adding them on Facebook.)

Gordon is under this sort of scrutiny. He was under this sort of scrutiny even when he wasn’t on the election campaign trail. Which means that within moments of it happening, news was all over the Internet. It’s been said a number of times before that the fact this is the first election where social networking is going to be a big deal. This incident, and the speed with which it spread from Twitter to Facebook and back again many times over, just goes to show how much power the Internet is going to have over the end result of the election. Couple this with the various campaigns in support of underdog Nick Clegg of the LibDems on Facebook and things aren’t looking too rosy for our PM.

The worrying thing about this situation is that it’s allowing parties with more extreme views such as the BNP to gain more support. Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, claimed in his controversial (and Marmite-smeared) election broadcast that the BNP is the “fastest growing party in Britain”. This may well be an exaggeration (and probably is) but the big issue for a lot of people at this election is immigration. A lot of people feel rather strongly about it, to say the least. A lot of people are becoming more outspoken about their views. And a lot of people are starting to sympathise with the BNP’s views. When they see damning evidence that the “main” parties don’t appear to be paying attention to the things that matter to them, that’s when they start to look elsewhere. And hearing your views dismissed as being “bigoted” by the Prime Minister certainly isn’t going to make you feel like voting for a party you’ve been loyal to your whole life.

I’m no fan of the Daily Mail “Britain is FULL!” line and I don’t particularly agree with Gillian Duffy’s statements. But it’s her right as a voter to share those views with the prospective candidates and question them on what their plans to do something about them are. It’s part of being an informed voter. This election is actually interesting people for once, so voters have every right to make an informed choice. What Gordon should have done – and in fact, what Gordon has said he was going to do – was engage with the woman’s opinions and open a debate. Part of being a politician is dealing with people who hold differing viewpoints to you. These viewpoints might be a little bit different, or they might be completely diametrically opposed to yours. The masters of their art can engage with these viewpoints and disagree with them in such a way which doesn’t leave the other person feeling like a complete dick. I can only imagine how mortified Gillian Duffy must have felt when she discovered what had been said about her.

Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine. Ever-resourceful and keen to potentially get a shot of someone either getting angry or starting crying, reporters on the scene decided to share the PM’s gaffe with Duffy. This was her reaction:

Needless to say, the PM has lost the respect of one voter. Plus the millions of people who have retweeted and shared these videos all day. Plus the millions of people who don’t “do” social networking but have watched over the shoulders of partners and spouses. Plus anyone who watched the news today.

Brown’s defensiveness and unwillingness to engage with someone who disagreed with his views may well have cost him dear. Whatever you may think of Duffy’s comments on the subject of immigration, they’re pretty mild when compared with some of the things that BNP supporters come out with. Was calling her “bigoted” really necessary?

#oneaday, Day 95: Round 2! Fight!

The second round of the Leaders’ Debate happened tonight on Sky News. This means we had an annoying news ticker running across the bottom of the screen all the way through, accompanied by occasional references to make us wish “God, I wish I was watching this in HD”. There is no need for HD in a Leaders’ Debate. Unless you really like watching people sweat.

It was what happened afterwards that was quite interesting, though. Sky immediately pronounced David Cameron the “winner” of the debate, according to the YouGov/Sun poll. Now, I’m immediately suspicious about this as the Sun is hardly the most objective point of reference when it comes to politics, particularly around election time. But my suspicions were further confirmed when, looking at various other polls on different websites, results varied enormously. One site put Nick Clegg at a 65% majority. Twitter was overwhelmingly pro-LibDem once again. Another site put the three potential leaders much closer to one another.

Conclusions to draw from this, then? Polls are utterly meaningless if there’s more than one asking the same question, because you’re going to get vastly different answers according to the audience. One could even question whether the election itself is truly representative of public opinion, given our typically low turnout at the polling station on the big day. And then there’s our bizarre “first past the post” system, which means that it’s actually extremely difficult for the LibDems to achieve a majority, even if most of the country were to turn yellow overnight. Political reform is high on the agenda for all three parties, and this is one thing I think will be looked at for next time around. Proportional representation is the buzzword. I remember reading about that during A-Level Sociology and while I can’t quite recall what it actually means right now (and, it being late, can’t quite be bothered to look it up), I’m pretty sure it’s rather more fair than the odd system we have right now.

The real winner of the debate, as already mentioned, was Twitter. Twitter, during any sort of “big” event (and I use the term loosely, since last year The Apprentice became a “big” event on Twitter) explodes with discussion and jokes. It’s where the “public” thing about Twitter really comes into its own. Anyone and everyone can post, and anyone and everyone can read what everyone else said. Everyone from my humble self to “them off the telly” like Charlie Brooker, Simon Pegg and numerous others were all at it. And while the volume of tweets was so high it was impossible to read them all and stay sane, it provided an interesting snapshot of how people were reacting to everything, on a real-time basis. Gaffes the politicians made were caught immediately – “every time I go to Afghanistan I get blown away” being my particular favourite – and several people took it upon themselves to count how many times they attempted a lame joke (often), a successful joke (rare) or a flirtation with an attractive audience member (a clear victory for Clegg).

The other entertaining thing about today was the front-page article from the Daily Mail accusing Clegg of a “Nazi” slur. The reason for this? This article from 2002 (yes, 2002), in which Clegg, then an MEP, hit out at the misplaced sense of British self-satisfaction, when Germany, having been beaten down from not one but two World Wars, had achieved rather more significant financial and cultural success than we have. I happen to agree with him. Does that mean I’m making Nazi slurs too? The Mail didn’t even seem particularly clear on what they were accusing him of. Given that they had to go back eight years to find anything even vaguely controversial to dig up, they’re clearly more than a bit desperate.

The LibDems have balls, I have to give them that. After the Mail‘s accusation, a political blog and a Lib Dem councillor allegedly seeded the Twitter hashtag #nickcleggsfault, where anyone and everyone would have the opportunity to blame Nick Clegg for something that clearly wasn’t his fault. It’s a joke that could have so easily backfired, but Twitter, itself overwhelmingly LibDem at present, took it to heart and has spent the whole day “blaming” Clegg for everything from the unpronouncable, unspellable Icelandic volcano that has brought so much irritation to air travellers, to John Romero’s Daikatana. (I may have had something to do with that last one.)

This is the first time the election has felt like it “mattered”. Thirteen years of Labour has turned a lot of people into cynics, which would explain the nation’s poor turnouts at the last few elections. But hopefully, with all the buzz surrounding this one thanks to Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other means of online social networking, this may well be a year we start to see some big changes in British politics. And, as lovely as those beautiful old buildings down in Westminster are, what goes on inside them is in serious need of a big kick in the arse.

It’s probably pretty clear from all this that I will be voting yellow all the way. I’m not saying you should, too. But you should at least vote. It would be heartening to know that the nation actually gives a shit about something more important than bloody football for once.