Is this thing still on? Eight infamous 'hot mic' moments after Gillian Keegan's gaffe

September 05, 2023

The education secretary has apologised after she was caught complaining about not being thanked for doing a "f****** good job" over the unsafe concrete crisis.

Gillian Keegan didn't realise her microphone was still on when she criticised others for being "sat on their arses".

Ms Keegan wasn't the first, and she won't be the last, to have what is known as a "hot mic" gaffe.

Here are some of the most infamous "hot mic" moments.

'Bigoted woman'

Perhaps the most infamous hot-mic moment in British politics is when Gordon Brown shared his less-than-flattering view of a lifelong Labour voter.

Mr Brown, who was the Labour prime minister at the time, was already having a tough 2010 general election campaign when he spoke to Gillian Duffy in Rochdale.

The prime minister kept up a polite conversation as Ms Duffy, 65, challenged him over the economy and migration.

However, unaware his microphone was still on as he was driven away, Mr Brown said: "That was a disaster. They should never have put me with that woman… bigoted woman."

'I can't bear that man'

It's not just politicians who are known to drop the odd hot-mic gaffe, the King was once caught muttering under his breath about a reporter while on a skiing holiday in Switzerland in 2005.

Taking exception to a question from long-time BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell, the King, who was Prince Charles at the time, said: "Bloody people. I can't bear that man. He's so awful, he really is."

'Oh god I hate this (pen!)'

The King was also caught on camera venting his frustrations about a leaking pen while on a trip to Northern Ireland shortly after his mother's death.

"Oh god I hate this (pen)!" he said.

"I can't bear this bloody thing … every stinking time," the King added as he walked away.

'A bloody difficult woman'

During the 2016 Conservative leadership contest, Tory veteran Ken Clarke made his feelings about some of the candidates very clear when he thought the Sky News cameras were off.

Speaking with Sir Malcolm Rifkind, an ex-minister, about Theresa May, he said: "Theresa is a bloody difficult woman, but you and I worked with Margaret Thatcher."

On Michael Gove, he said: "I think with Michael as prime minister we'd go to war with at least three countries at once."

And on Boris Johnson, he said: "The idea of Boris as prime minister is ridiculous."

Ms May went on to win the contest after Mr Clarke's comment helped boost her leadership bid.

'She purred down the line'

Queen Elizabeth II was publicly impartial on matters such as government policy and Brexit, but her feelings about the possibility of Scottish independence appear to have been made clear when David Cameron was picked up by microphones in New York.

Mr Cameron was prime minister when he told New York's former mayor Michael Bloomberg how the Queen reacted when she heard the independence movement had lost the Scottish referendum in 2014.

He said: "The definition of relief is being the prime minister of the United Kingdom and ringing the Queen and saying 'It's all right, it's okay'. That was something.

"She purred down the line."

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'Stop doing this s***'

Former US president George W Bush was no stranger to a blunder, to put it mildly - there have been whole books written about it.

One of his best known gaffes was from when he was speaking to the UK's then-prime minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit in 2006.

Mr Bush greeted the prime minister with "Yo Blair" and thanked him for the recent gift of a jumper.

The pair then went on to discuss how to put pressure on Syria's Bashar al Assad to stop attacks on Israel by Hezbollah.

"What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s*** and it's all over," Mr Bush tells Mr Blair.

'I have to deal with him every day'

Mr Bush wouldn't be the last US president to have a hot-mic gaffe.

Then-US president Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy were heard making comments about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the G20 summit in November 2011.

Mr Sarkozy told Obama: "I can't stand him. He's a liar."

Mr Obama then replied: "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day."

'He's a jackass'

Two years earlier, Mr Obama had let his feelings known about polarising rapper Kanye West.

Mr Obama was addressing the controversy over West storming the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to gatecrash Taylor Swift's big moment.

"The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she's getting her award. What's he doing up there?" Mr Obama said during an off-the-record portion of a TV interview.

"He's a jackass."

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