Duffy, Gillian

"Gordo, let's go to Rochdale to get us some votes," said somebody*,

"To the home of Gracie Fields, Anna Friel and Bill Oddie."

He hoped to meet the lovable, excitable badger-cuddler Bill,

But on arrival he found angry Old Labour Grandma Gill**.

"All these Eastern Europeans what are coming in," she grumbled,

"Where are they coming from?***" At this Gordo stumbled.

His temper was rising and curdling within,

But he delivered his answers wearing the politician's grin.

Bigot alert had gone off in Brown's brain,

But he didn't utter this word, he managed to refrain

Until back in the car and in a foul mood

He let his tongue free and from it this spewed:

"She's just a sort of bigoted woman" were the words he did choose

Little did he know that he was speaking into the mic of Sky News.

His gaffe was revealed to him by Jeremy Vine on Radio 2.

Brown was worried that his rash words would turn the air blue.

Back on the road, straight to Duffy's door

Where he said, "Sorry, my choice of words were poor."

And Cameron and Cleggy both had a smile on their face

They jointly claimed, "This is now a two-horse race".

But that moment of brutal honesty held some truth and some compassion.

I prefer his anger than the current political fashion

Of refusing to say what you really think

In case it causes your chances of governing to sink.

I was feeling yellow, but now those words that were probably not clever

Have left me, like Gordo's temper, redder than ever.

* perhaps Sue

** Grandma Gill deserves respect for refusing to sell her story to The Sun

*** surely this question demanded the answer: "Eastern Europe"

This poem came after teaching a Year 7 class about the election. When writing their own political speeches, one of the boys wrote: "Don't vote for Gordon Brown. He called your nan a bigot". That's a great opening line, but it made me realise that this little storm in a Rochdale teacup had come to define the Labour Party in his eyes.