The truth is out there – or more accurately, the truth is in a pebble-dashed terrace house in Rochdale. Yesterday's headlines demanded candour from our politicians. Today's tell us that a politician who reveals what he really thinks must turn his car around, return to the scene of his crime and apologise in person for the benefit of the cameras and microphones that caught him out in the first place. Gordon Brown's public humiliation was not the particular bit of truth we were asking for, of course. The day began with questions about the failure of all three leaders to tell us how they plan to reduce the deficit. That burning issue, still the only one that really matters, has now been shoved to the background by looped footage of a plain-speaking Lancashire woman sticking it to the Prime Minister. Yet we asked for truth, and we cannot complain when it comes in unexpected shapes. This election has been marked by the voters' hunger for honesty, both personal and political. History will doubtless show that our appetite has been sharpened by years of broken promises and empty words; the scandal of MPs' expenses left us ravenous. This is why the general election campaign stopped yesterday to watch Mr Brown's walk of shame to Gillian Duffy's front door, and waited for what seemed like ages for him to come out from behind the net curtains. Even the Special Branch minders guarding him looked embarrassed by the black comedy they found themselves a part of. "I'm a penitent sinner," said Mr Brown on emerging, his face stiff with a smile of realisation that the wages of sin are political death. Some in the commentariat have tried to laugh off Mr Brown's moment of verbal madness as evidence that he is human. The voters, they suggest, would feel sympathy for a politician caught unawares, then humiliated over and over again on live television. However, the Prime Minister is a more sophisticated political animal. He must know that if authenticity is all the rage, this was the wrong kind. He held his head when he was made to listen to the tape because he could hear the sound of Labour voters turning theirs away in shame. Had Mrs Duffy been a Tory, or worse, he might have spun his way out of it. But to be rude and dismissive about one of your own, for daring to voice a concern that half the population shares about the toll of immigration on our society? Only the most complacent of Westminster types could shrug that one off. Once we are done with the indignation and the rejoicing, what might be the consequences? The drama happened in Rochdale, a Lib Dem marginal that Labour had hoped to take, and in the North-West, where majorities are won and lost. Mrs Duffy is patently as honest as an Eccles cake, a woman who exudes common sense and fairness. Her most wounding riposte was her baffled: "But he's an educated person…" Labour voters in England nursing doubts about Mr Brown will be forgiven for concluding that they don't think much of this insulting Scot's manners. The party's fear must be that a slide turns into a rout. The Conservatives already report higher expectations in that neck of the woods, thanks in part to the Lib Dem surge. Before his Rochdale moment, Mr Brown was in Oldham with Jack Straw and Phil Woolas, forced to shore up two ministers who suddenly look vulnerable. Labour now looks dangerously exposed in the marginal seats that, if they go Tory, would give David Cameron a majority. He, in turn, was in Morley and Outwood yesterday, pressing home his party's attempts to defenestrate Ed Balls. Conservative insiders say their support in Labour marginals remains strong, though they are modest about what they hope to gain. Nick Clegg's advance has taken votes off Labour, increasing the Conservatives' chances. Against the Lib Dems, the party is less optimistic: the latest news is that it hopes to break even. The current betting inside party headquarters is on a small, single-figure majority. Certainly, they expect Mr Cameron to be prime minister. For Mr Brown, the peril is personal, for two reasons. In the short term, he must recover his composure sufficiently to face tonight's debate on the economy (that he has to endure a grilling by Jeremy Paxman tomorrow adds to the agony). The final instalment of this trial by X Factor was supposed to play to his advantage by allowing him to posture as an economic saviour, against two dangerous novices. But while he let himself judge Mrs Duffy on her legitimate query about immigration, it was her far more potent question about the economy – "How are you going to get us out of all this debt, Gordon?" – that should worry him tonight. By asking him about the crisis the country faces, she has made it legitimate for the audience, or the other leaders, to skewer him with it: he claims to lead, yet he insults those who ask him about the state of the public finances. Second, Mr Brown must fear that his blunder, and the view that it will provoke a final, unstoppable falling-away of Labour support, will open the way for speculation about his position even before the voting starts next Thursday. He wanted the final week of the election to focus on Mr Cameron's weaknesses. Instead, it could turn into a drawn-out debate about Labour's failings. Months ago, the likes of Steve Hilton and George Osborne were predicting – and praying – that it would all come down to the campaign, and the likelihood that Mr Brown would somehow crack under pressure. They wanted to focus voters' minds on the hard truths about Mr Brown – his temper, his indecisiveness, his policy failings. Until Mrs Duffy popped up, they were having to confront some hard truths of their own, not least that Mr Cameron's decision to agree to the televised debates that gave Mr Clegg equal billing, against the advice of many around him, was probably the single biggest strategic mistake of his leadership. In fact, the Tories, champions of openness in politics, are concealing plenty of inconvenient truths of their own, from the hidden elements of their deficit reduction programme to Mr Cameron's own capacity for temper and rudeness. The truth about Gordon Brown is their weapon; the truth about themselves – most of it good, but difficult to sell – is best avoided. Barring a disaster from the Tory leader, however, tonight's third debate should come too late to make much of a difference. The parties say privately that for all the buzz, the number of voters in battleground seats who have switched votes as a result of the Lib Dems' twirl under the TV lights is near negligible. Which may mean that Mr Brown's moment of truth with Mrs Duffy will prove to be the final, defining moment of the 2010 campaign. It is now too late to turn the supertanker before May 6. Still, we continue to clamour for truth on all fronts, even if the politicians refuse to oblige us. They are wise to the dangers. "I know the truth," Peter Mandelson said yesterday of his leader, as he tried once again to defend and explain the failings of his protégé. But just like Mr Brown, and Mr Cameron, he knows it is sometimes best left unsaid.General Election 2010:
The truth is out about Gordon Brown,
but what about the other two?
Despite Gillian Duffy's intervention, the party leaders are still failing
to answer the voters, says Benedict Brogan.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
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