It was an accident waiting to happen-  the cliche sums it up perfectly.

Gordon Brown caught in conversation with a real voter, who had a real opinion about a real concern for many people in this election – immigration.

In yesterday’s column, I wrote about two confrontations David Cameron had had with voters who didn’t like a couple of his policies.

He discussed the issues at length, but afterwards neither Chloe Green (student funding) nor Jonathan Bartley (schooling for his disabled son) were satisfied by the Tory leader’s arguments, and they departed agreeing to disagree.

I wrote last night: “Why haven’t Messrs Brown and Clegg been involved in such confrontations? They couldn’t be using their breakneck schedules to avoid any considered conversations with voters, could they?”

I should have waited 24 hours for the Prime Minister’s visit to Rochdale, and his conversation with Gillian Duffy.

After their initial discussion, Mr Brown put his arm around Mrs Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, and was all smiles.

Within a minute or so, he was calling the conversation “a disaster” and said it was “ridiculous” that he should have been put into a situation where he had to talk to her.

This was the leader of the Labour Party, who thought he shouldn’t have been talking to a lifelong Labour supporter about her concerns.

Later, after a further 40-minute conversation with Mrs Duffy in which he offered his “profuse apologies”, he said he had misunderstood what she had said during their initial chat. Hmmm. . .

We’ve seen it before with past premiers. They should get out more and talk to real people about their real problems, instead of glad-handing fawning dummies who have been put in front of them by their aides.
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Sensibly, Nick Clegg didn’t try to make political capital out of the biggest blunder of the campaign so far.

“Gordon Brown has now gone out of his way to apologise, he is quite right to do so and I think that’s that,” he said.

The Liberal Democrat leader (and no doubt Mr Cameron too) will surely be thinking “there but for the grace of God. . .”, but they should always remember their mics.