World press has field day over gaffe

NEWSPAPERS across the world reported Gordon Brown’s gaffe as a potential death knell to Labour’s hopes of clinging to power at next week’s general election.

New York Times reporter Sarah Lyall said the incident “proved seriously unfortunate for him and for his party”.

“Maybe it was proof of the maxim that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. Or maybe it was evidence that Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for all he tries to be nice, might actually be kind of mean.

“Or maybe it was a fatal blow to the Labour government’s chances of staying in power after next Thursday’s election,” she wrote.

France’s Le Figaro said Brown had done nothing to improve his “austere” and “choleric” image and the incident would not help Labour which had been “relegated to a humiliating third place in the polls”.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Brown’s “re-election troubles deepened” when he was forced to make the “grovelling apology”.

The Washington Post dubbed the incident “Bigotgate”.

Spanish newspaper El Mundo said the picture of Brown “downcast and hidden under the microphones of the BBC” would be an unforgettable image from the campaign.

The New Zealand Herald said Britain’s “bedraggled” Prime Minister walked into “a political train wreck”.