http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7649918/General-Election-2010-Gordon-Brown-made-dreadful-mistake-says-Alan-Johnson.html
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3F_ly9xSqQ
As the Prime Minister tried to focus on tonight's third and final televised leaders' debate, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said he had been mortified by his unguarded comments about 66-year-old Gillian Duffy.
He said Mr Brown had insisted on going to Mrs Duffy's home in Rochdale to apologise in person after his remarks to an aide were picked up by a television microphone and broadcast around the world.
''His sensitivity, his humanity, said 'Look, I have to go and talk to this woman' because he made a dreadful mistake,'' Mr Johnson told BBC1's Breakfast programme.
And he insisted that voters like Mrs Duffy, who expressed concern about immigration, were not bigoted and Labour did not regard the issue as being off-limits in the General Election campaign.
''Bigoted, unreasonably prejudiced and intolerant certainly doesn't apply to Mrs Duffy,'' he said. ''Mrs Duffy isn't bigoted, Gordon isn't a monster and the issue of immigration isn't off limits.''
But shadow chief treasury secretary Philip Hammond said voters would draw their own conclusions from Mr Brown's remarks.
''What I was most struck by was the difference between what he said to Mrs Duffy when he was chatting to her and what he said about Mrs Duffy when he was in what he thought was the privacy of his own car,'' he told Sky News.
''People will draw their own conclusions about that.''
Labour strategists had been hoping that tonight's debate focusing on the economy would be an opportunity to regain ground in a campaign which has seen them trailing in third place in the polls for much of the time.
But they found themselves trying to pick up the pieces from the fall-out of his explosive chance encounter with Mrs Duffy, who had just popped out to buy a loaf of bread.
In an email to Labour Party activists last night, Mr Brown offered them the same "profound" apology he had made to Mrs Duffy, and promised they would see him in a different "context" in the debate.
"Many of you know me personally," he wrote. "You know I have strengths as well as weaknesses. We all do. You also know that sometimes we say and do things we regret. I profoundly regret what I said."
Sarah Brown joined a slew of Cabinet ministers rallying round in a bid to limit the damage, insisting her "caring" husband "hated the fact he had hurt someone".
The premier had been canvassing in Rochdale when he met retired council worker Mrs Duffy, who asked him a series of questions including about benefits and the Eastern Europeans who had been "flooding" into Britain.
The discussion ended amicably, and the widow - who said she was a life-long Labour voter - said she had found the PM "nice" and intended to vote for him by post.
But as Mr Brown was swept away in his car, he told an aide the encounter had been "a disaster", unaware that his words were being transmitted by a Sky News radio microphone which he had forgotten to remove.
Asked what Mrs Duffy had said, he replied: "Everything, she was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour."
Mrs Duffy appeared shocked when informed of his remarks, insisting: "He's supposed to be leading the country and he's calling an ordinary woman who's come up and asked questions... a bigot."
Played a tape of his words later on BBC Radio 2 - screened live on the TV news channels - a visibly deflated PM put his head in his hand, and was soon heading for Mrs Duffy's home to beg forgiveness.
Following their 40-minute private meeting, he told reporters he was "mortified".
"I misunderstood what she said," he added. "She has accepted that there was a misunderstanding and she has accepted my apology. If you like, I am a penitent sinner."
Mrs Duffy has yet to emerge publicly to give her account of the exchange.
Mrs Brown - who was unusually absent from her husband's side when the incident happened - told the Daily Mirror: "People may say many things about Gordon, but they cannot say he doesn't care. He phoned me as soon as it happened and was absolutely mortified.
"He went to see her because he hated the fact he had hurt someone. His apology was from the heart."
Party strategists will now be scrutinising the polls for signs of how the gaffe has affected the election contest.
Later, Mr Johnson said Mr Brown was under a lot of pressure when he made his gaffe.
"Gordon is running a campaign, he's also still Prime Minister, he will have a thousand things to do, he's got a lot of pressure on him. He gets back in the car and says things. We've all done it," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"He's under a great deal of pressure, got into the car and said things he shouldn't have said. There's not a single one of us, if we had a microphone pinned to our lapel, that wouldn't regret some of the things we said."
Mr Johnson added: "No-one can suggest this wasn't damaging. You have to look at how Gordon responds. I think Gordon has dealt with that properly. He's very much an un-spun politician."
Asked if the very future of the Labour Party was at stake in tonight's debate, the Home Secretary replied: "It's important, because this election is important to the future of the party and certainly Gordon will be pulling out all the stops."
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