TV debate will let Brown shine and eclipse 'bigot' row, says Alan Johnson

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, today sought to draw a line under Gordon Brown's damaging description of a Labour supporter as "a bigoted woman" , admitting the prime minister had made a "dreadful mistake" but insisting he would pull out all the stops in tonight's final leaders' debate. Johnson, who was doing the rounds of the news media this morning, acknowledged the damage done to Labour's election campaign by Brown's private comments about Gillian Duffy in Rochdale yesterday, which were caught on an open Sky microphone, but denied the party believed the issue of immigration to be "off-limits". "Bigoted, unreasonably prejudiced and intolerant certainly doesn't apply to Mrs Duffy. Mrs Duffy isn't bigoted, Gordon isn't a monster and the issue of immigration isn't off limits," Johnson told BBC1's Breakfast programme. He also told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Brown was "under a great deal of pressure" and that there was "not a single one of us, if we had a microphone pinned to our lapel, that wouldn't regret some of the things we said". He said of tonight's debate, which will focus on the economy: "It's important, because this election is important to the future of the party and certainly Gordon will be pulling out all the stops." The chancellor, Alistair Darling, joined in the damage-limitation exercise, appearing on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme. Darling denied that Brown had lost Labour the election and tried to divert attention back to the economy. "It is deeply regrettable but, I think, as far as the election campaign as a whole is concerned, I think people are very aware of the fact the next government is going to have to make some pretty big decisions," he said. There was some support from the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, for Labour's attempts to draw a line under the incident. "He's apologised. He's explained why what happened and I'm certainly not going to start commenting on it any further." The Lib Dems' Treasury spokesman, Vincent Cable, said that he would find it "very difficult" to work with Brown in the event of a hung parliament, but he also called for the election debate to return to the economy. "What worried me about that exchange was that it sort of crowded out of the election debate something which probably a lot of people find a bit boring, but is absolutely essential, which is what we do about the economy," he told LBC radio. However, the Conservatives sought to keep Brown's comments at the top of the news agenda with the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Philip Hammond, telling Sky News: "What I was most struck by was the difference between what he said to Mrs Duffy when he was chatting to her and what he said about Mrs Duffy when he was in what he thought was the privacy of his own car. People will draw their own conclusions about that." The prime minister's comments threw Labour's election campaign into turmoil as the party was attempting to refocus the election campaign on policy rather than personalities, after Brown was perceived to have lost out to the other party leaders, particularly Clegg, in the two previous head-to-head television debates. But, after yesterday's gaffe, the pressure will be on Brown to put in a strong performance in tonight's debate on BBC1, especially as the economy is seen to be his strongest subject. In the run-up to tonight's debate in Birmingham, all three party leaders have been out campaigning in the area. Clegg held a question-and-answer session with students at South Birmingham college this morning, while the prime minister visited the Thompson Friction Welding factory in Halesowen, Dudley. David Cameron visited Birmingham children's hospital, reaffirming the Tories' commitment to fund cancer drugs.