Immigration fires up leaders’ contest

IT was “immigration, immigration, immigration” as the ghost of Gordon Brown’s campaign gaffe haunted last night’s TV debate between the prime ministerial hopefuls.

While neither the questioner nor the three party leaders spoke specifically of Brown’s branding of pensioner Gillian Duffy as “a bigoted woman” after quizzing him on Eastern Europeans flocking to Britain, it was only when the issue she raised on Wednesday in Rochdale bubbled up again in the Birmingham studio that the broadcast came alive.

Brown tried to draw a line under the row with a plea to voters to judge him on his economic competence not his personality.