2010 United Kingdom general election debates can do something to change our country." The final round of the first ever televised leaders' debates, hosted by the BBC, was held in the Great Hall of Birmingham University on 29 April 2010. The background to the debate was overshadowed a day before by a remark made by Gordon Brown in private, while being driven away after canvassing in Rochdale, when he met retired council worker Gillian Duffy. In the remark, caught by a lapel microphone, Brown said that "...she was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour". At the beginning of the
Premiership of Gordon Brown there had been none. The House of Lords defeated the bill, which Lords said was "fatally flawed, ill thought through and unnecessary", stating that "it seeks to further erode ... fundamental legal and civil rights". Gordon Brown caused controversy during September and early October 2007 by letting speculation that he would call a snap general election continue. The Labour Party launched an advertising campaign, "Not Flash, Just Gordon", which was seen largely as pre-election promotion of Brown as Prime Minister. Following the negative reaction to his visit to British troops in Iraq during the 2007 Conservative Party Conference, an unrehearsed