The coalition’s trouble with women has been under the spotlight in recent weeks. Today, internal polling by the Conservative Party, published by the Times (£), confirms that women are turning away from the Tories in droves.
It found a drastic gender gap in attitudes, with 25 per cent more women than men believing that the economy is going in the wrong direction, and 10 per cent more believing that cuts are unfair. Overall favourability towards the government was 12 per cent lower among women, while women were twice as likely to think that their children will have a worse life than their generation did.
This is hardly a new trend, but it does confirm an existing problem. A recent New Statesman leader outlines the polling evidence:
The Tories’ disproportionately low support among women prevented them from winning a majority at the last general election and could deny them one at the next. Among men, the party led Labour by 10 points at the last election but among women it led by just 4. The situation has since grown worse. An Ipsos MORI poll published on 14 September found that support for the Conservatives among women had slumped to 29 per cent, compared to 38 per cent among men. Worse for the Tories, a New Statesman/ICD poll published on 4 October found that just 35 per cent of women “would consider” voting for the Conservatives at the next election and that 65 per cent would not.
While one should be wary of broad generalisations about a large group such as “women voters”, this is a worry for the Tories. The support is particularly dropping away among C2 women, typically skilled manual workers. A recent post by Gavin Kelly suggested some of the reasons this might be: the way that public sector job cuts are disproportionately affecting women, the rise in retirement age, and cuts to childcare.
Advisers have told the Prime Minister that he will struggle to win a majority in 2015 if something is not done. In an attempt to tackle this growing problem, David Cameron is to focus on issues seen to appeal to women, such as the sexualisation of children, and boosting adoptions. However, Labour’s Yvette Cooper has a strong attack line when she says: “They think they have a presentation problem but actually it is a policy problem.”
This latest poll shows that women are not simply concerned about “female” issues like childcare, but are fundamentally concerned by the deficit reduction programme and the direction in which the economy is going. It will take more than Cameron presenting himself as “caring” to tackle this perception.
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