Brown's 'bigot' was what 24-hour news was made for

Brown, Brown, Brown, was it really necessary to hammer the final nail into your own coffin?

Tony Blair, BBC sources claim, had his very own microphone that only he and his aides could control. But Tony Blair is far from the norm. Gordon is in good and varied company with his microphone gaffe.

Since the beginning of twenty-four-hour news a microphone has been the downfall of many a slick star and polished politician. And now we have the internet to thank for these gaffes never, ever going away.

CNN’s Kyra Philips branded branded all men “a**holes” and her brother’s wife a “control freak” before crew shut her up. Wish I could be a fly on the wall at their next family Sunday lunch. oops.

Ronald Reagan’s is an old school gaffe – a radio mic gave him away in this one. The US president managed to accidently ‘outlaw’ Russia. And say bombing was to commence in five minutes.

Jesse Jackson – The civil rights campaigner said he wanted to cut Barack Obama’s “nuts off” ahead of a TV interview in 2008 and accused Obama of “speaking down to black people”.

George Bush to Blair – ‘get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit’ – ever the diplomat

http://www.youtube.com/v/6Xq3DobSCKQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Bush again – making his views on the New York Times journo Adam Clymer perfectly clear. In an election rally in 2000, Bush spotted the writer in the crowd and called him a “major-league a**hole”

Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar declaring a report he’d just delivered to the European Parliament in 2002 “Vaya conazo que he soltado”. Translated: “What a load of c**p I’ve just delivered.”
http://www.youtube.com/v/dAP2KLmkQRM&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Our very own dashing king in waiting. Well ok, he’s not dashing, he’s not charming and he’s probably never going to be king. But he is a prince and he really doesn’t like having his photo taken – as this clip shows.

Izzard's the perfect fix for broken Brown

Eddie Izzard is really cool. He was cool when he was a bit overweight and caked in makeup. He was cool when he was a bit overweight, wearing chunky 90s heels and just a smidgen too much PVC. And now he’s done it again. He’s cool in a Labour party election broadcast. The first person in history to ever look cool in a party election broadcast.

http://www.youtube.com/v/oZDreHPzU94&hl=en_GB&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

In the video released today Izzard manages to talk about issues we have heard a million times before in a witty, engaging manner. He didn’t preach nor did his words come across as an air-headed celebrity endorsement. So how did he do it?

Simply it seems by sticking to what he does best. Comedy. Comedy is, invariably, hooked on politics. Pointing out a societal elephant in the room or two – like the fact that tories don’t tend to be very nice people but do tend to have a lot of money that they don’t like to share – is the essence of many a comic routine . And it is this cynical social commentary that Brits are famous for – shining a bright often unflattering light on to the realities of our society.

But comedy is also uplifting. Encoraging you, literally, to laugh at yourself and at the mess that we’ve got ourselves and the world into. Cynical it may be, but comedy also relies on optimism.

So it doesn’t suprise me that an accomplished comedian like Eddie Izzard is practically the only person in this electoral campaign that comes across as genuine, honest and appealing. The reason is simple. We mayshare a joke about a broken Britain but we’re only able to do so because deep down we know it’s also pretty brilliant.