After glad-handing a difficult voter who told of her concerns about immigration, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown retreated to the sanctity of his car, where he promptly described the woman as “bigoted.” Unfortunately for Brown, he was wearing a live microphone at the time.

AP via Yahoo:

Brown, apparently forgetting that he’d left a television microphone pinned to his chest, called 66-year-old Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman” as he was being driven from a public meeting where she had needled him on immigration.

Within minutes the bad-tempered aside had exploded across the British media, and within a couple of hours Brown was rushing back to her home to beg Duffy’s forgiveness and writing to his supporters to make clear he’d apologized.

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#apology#britain#gordon brown#immigration#media#politics#prime minister#uk