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
Political pensioner Only one Sikh pensioner : Similar 'golden cage' arrangements were often made later by other (not only British) governments. An extreme case was the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, for whom the Italian island of Elba was turned into an operetta 'empire' until his escape, Cent Jours revolt and miserable banishment to St. Helena. Political pensioner A political pensioner enjoys a pension awarded due to his or political career or significance. By the Political Offices Pension Act 1869, pensions were instituted for those who had held political office. For the purposes of the act, political offices were divided into three classes: