On the day that the front pages are rightly dominated by Gordon’s bigot gaffe, I can only come back with a sense of balance on this. Gordon was wrong to respond as he did, although in his defence, Mrs Duffy had asked questions and then repeatedly talked over him while he was trying to answer, and she also said “you can’t say anything about the immigrants, because you’re saying that you’re ra… all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?”, which would put my personal bigot radar up. He also didn’t realise he was still being recorded, and if I were called to account, every time I blew off steam inappropriately after a difficult phone call or encounter, I would probably be equally embarassed.
But what I want to remind readers of today is Alan Duncan – the Tory’s own inappropriate comment generator.
After the expenses scandal, Mr Duncan (who had wrongly claimed thousands for gardening, and also claimed mortgage interest on a second home even though he owned several homes in London already), being filmed without realising it, said that MPs (who earn roughly £64,000 per year, a salary in the top 4% of the population) were being forced to “to live on rations and are treated like shit.”
So again, I repeat what I used to excuse Brown. He didn’t realise he was being recorded, he was just sounding off, it is entirely excusable. Not the same his comments on Have I Got News For You, when surely he couldn’t claim he didn’t know he was being recorded? On the show, he boasted about his mortgage claims, and said that he wouldn’t pay the money back, and that it was a “great system”.
When asked on another recording of the show his opinion of Miss California USA 2009, who publicly opposes gay marriage, he said “If you read that Miss California has been murdered, you will know it was me, won’t you?”
Again, I can see the intended humour, and don’t really blame Duncan for his comments. I just thought they might help give some balance to the news today.
Reason #15: Alan Duncan betrayed an entitetlement in his recorded comments for which he was not removed from his position as an MP.