British politicians believe the imminent general election could be decided by women, and they are doing everything possible to attract them, writes Mark Hennessy, London Editor
IT IS SOMETHING politicians are constantly looking out for, especially when an election is approaching: the single identifiable class of voter that can be ruthlessly targeted and won over. In the United Kingdom in 2010, that category is women, and political leaders of all hues are doing everything possible to get their support, through daytime TV, internet sites and glossy magazines.
Opinion polls, though they should be “taken but not inhaled”, as US statesman Adlai Stevenson once said, indicate that men are split evenly between the Conservatives and Labour, but that women, by 37 points to 29, now back the Tories.
Once deemed to be the more Conservative-leaning sex, women voted by 46 points to 36 for Margaret Thatcher in 1979; by an even larger margin in 1983, 44 points to 28; and by 43 to 31 points in her last election in 1987. They continued to favour the Conservatives under John Major in his victory from the jaws of defeat in 1992.
However, in 1997, they shifted significantly to Labour’s Tony Blair, by 44 points to 32, a result that broadly matched men’s preferences. Labour held this lead in the two subsequent general elections, while in 2005 more women than men voted for Labour – despite the Iraq War, which was regarded as a serious negative for Blair.
Labour strategists believe that women’s votes could be crucial in deciding more than 50 marginal House of Commons seats, and women are now receiving targeted mail, emphasising schemes such as Sure Start, which has pumped extra funding into early education, and warning about the effects Conservative spending cuts will have.
For decades, British politicians paid insufficient attention to women, largely because fewer of them voted than men. But times have changed and, in 1997, more women than men are believed to have voted – though women from ethnic backgrounds are still significantly less likely to vote.
Worried about his dour public image, prime minister Gordon Brown was this week a guest on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, the third party leader to appear on the influential programme. He declared that he was more comfortable with women than men, and listed the actions Labour has taken for women since 1997.
During the broadcast, he showed some, if not much, of the human side that he so often struggles to display in public, and he certainly performed better than he did on the Mumsnet website, which has 850,000 regular readers, last October, when he was ridiculed for not answering a question about his favourite biscuit. It turned out that Brown had missed the biscuit question amongst a blizzard of others, though he managed to make matters worse when he posted a Twitter message the following day saying he liked anything “with a bit of chocolate on it”. Brown’s mishap is a timely warning to other politicians that such outings are fraught with danger.
The Woman's Hourappearance is but one outlet of dozens being seized upon by politicians to target women, who often switch off more adversarial and, it must be said, more male-dominated traditional news programmes, while Sarah Brown, the prime minister's wife, has recently been a guest editor on News of the World's Fabulousmagazine.
Another popular magazine, Red– with 225,000 readers, half of whom say they have not decided how they will vote – is producing an election special in May, interviewing all three major party leaders.
“The last election was the first time they did it properly, when they wised up. Before that, they thought they’d get an easy ride,” says its editor, Sam Baker.
By focusing on women’s issues, Brown has driven home the message that proposed Tory cuts – most notably a plan to means-test family tax credits – would harm “middle-class mainstream mums” and damage the public services that women, in the main, have more contact with day to day.
Conservative leader David Cameron, meanwhile, has sought to emphasise his own marriage to Samantha, and has spoken about the loss of their son, Ivan, last year. He is also trying to drive home the message that the National Health Service – a key concern of female focus groups – is safe in his hands.
However, the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equal rights for women on pay, pensions and other issues, rejects the notion that women find the dour Scot less attractive than the telegenic Cameron, emphasising instead their concerns about the 43-year-old Conservative leader’s lack of experience. It is, according to the society, an “enduring myth that women’s voting behaviour is more influenced by the personality and appeal of the party leader”, and the implication that Brown is less attractive to women is not supported by research.
However, there are worrying signs for both Labour and the Conservatives that working-class women are drifting away from both parties, feeling that they are being talked down to – most of all by “sharp-suited”, middle-class women such as Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman. Centre for Policy Studies research recently indicated that the number of women declaring themselves to be without a party loyalty has jumped from 8 per cent in 1986 to 24 per cent in 2006. And the figure is likely to be far higher today.
“Women who value home and family life are becoming disenfranchised.The feminist ‘sisterhood’ has clearly failed them, and the result is that they are withdrawing their support from the mainstream parties . . . The proportion of young women who prioritise home and family has been growing steadily in recent years, and so their votes matter,” says researcher Geoff Dench.
Labour and Conservative politicians cannot be sure what the effect of this development will be, as it could simply mean that more women voters will stay at home. Or does it mean, perhaps, that they will be more likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, or fringe parties such as the British National Party or the United Kingdom Independence Party? What’s certain is that Labour and Conservative efforts to attract women will continue until election day.
