YouGov data shows Tories with a 15% lead amongst women
May 31st, 2006
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A pollling quirk or are women really flocking to Dave?
The full dataset from May’s YouGov poll in the Telegraph shows a gender divide in voting intention on a scale that is almost unprecedented.
Putting these shares into the Baxter calculator Labour would have a 72 seat majority if the electorate was compised only of men while the Tories would have a 154 seat majority if it was all female.
Normally you need to be wary about taking subsets from polls because inevitably the smaller the sample the greater the margin of error. In this case, however, the sample size for each sex is larger than for most ICM polls. However while the overall sample was adjusted to make it politically representative, using YouGov’s “political identifier”, this is not applied to sub-sets like gender.
What makes this interesting is that a similar picture has appeared in other recent polls - though not on anything like the scale of the latest YouGov numbers. The significance of a move by women to the Tories is huge for it was the move of the female vote to Labour in 1997 that played a key part in Tony Blair’s victory.
In the Observer at the weekend Mary Riddle noted “If women alone had voted in 2005, Labour would have won by 90 seats instead of 66. In a men-only ballot, Blair’s majority would have been down to around 20 seats. Should the female vote melt away next time, then Gordon Brown, as leader, would face catastrophe.“
This change seems to have been fairly recent. In a poll for the Sunday Times taken just after the leadership election in December the male and female CON-LAB figures were almost the same. By February, after Cameron’s initial honeymoon was starting to wear off, the pollster had the Tories with a 3% lead amongst women but 6% behind amongst males. In March the Tories had a 4% female lead balanced by a 4% shortfall amongst men.
Going back through recent ICM polls there is now a small pro-Tory margin amongst women voters but nothing on the scale of that seen in this latest YouGov survey.
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Whether this is a quirk in one poll or a serious trend we need to see more evidence. As I have observed here before the YouGov methodology tends to pick up trends earlier and then magnify them more than the other pollsters.
If a switch in female voting intention has changed it is simply a return to normal. Right up until the time Tony Blair and NuLab came on the scene women tended to be much more Tory than men.
Mike Smithson
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Where good women go, men will follow.
Previous polls have shown much higher male support for BNP and Ukip than female support.
The male vote could be more influenced by economic matters than the female vote which may be more influenced by social matters. It could be curtains for Brown if there is much economic bad news in the next couple of years.
John Prescott deserves the credit for this Tory breakthrough.
However it does seem that image is more important to women when deciding which way to vote. We have had hardly any policies from Cameron but women are willing to back him anyway, because he provides the right mood music.
Cameron has to be the “nicest” leader (not going on about immigration all the time) the Tories have had at least since Major was in 92.
He may not be as nice as Tony Blair appeared in 97, but he’s a lot nicer than how Blair is now.
I think women voters want nice and not nasty more than men. I also believe the Chemeleon campaign helped him too.
Sorry if I sound sexist by making sweeping generalisations!
The Yougov poll for April had almost no difference in the proportion of mean and women saying they’d vote Conservative, so I’d be inclined to treat it as a one off. The current poll has another odd feature - a 9% Tory lead in the 18-34 age group, which I think is just a quirk of that particular sub-sample.
There are some persistent gender gaps. In general, women are rather more eurosceptic than men.
A blow to those grumbling about the A list.
Cameron’s speeches on happiness and flexible working probably went down well too. There has been a lot of Tory concentration on women’s issues. Very wise.
I cannot find the main headline data, what are the headline voting intention figures?
Scrap that - I see this refers to the old poll.
Almost everyone involved in creating the A List seems to disclaiming responsibility for it, Commentator.
Not true, Sean. You let the wish be father to the fact. Look at today’s Times. There is a recognition that seats were put in the first tranche that ought not to have been there.
Bernard Jenkin’s solution is to demand A list applicants apply for the harder seats next time but to remove unwinnable or very tough seats from the mix. No more Lewes.
That should solve the problem of applications. Meanwhile, this soaring rise in female votes will be noted at Victoria Street and will be more important to them than grumbling from the Telegraph or ConHome.
Re Sean 5. But in April there was still a 2% pro-Tory gap amongst women.
“However while the overall sample was adjusted to make it politically representative, using YouGov’s “political identifier”, this is not applied to sub-sets like gender.”
I wonder why not. That would make the figures far more interesting. Still, this seems to be a big jump in the trend if borne out by future polls.
3 Will.: “John Prescott deserves the credit for this Tory breakthrough.”
I wonder what today’s sunshine will do to Westminsters’s favourite big fat frog? Croak Hey! Croak Hey! Croak Hey! It’s a good day for another ‘having-it-all’ - ‘away-day’!
Do you remember all those flights round the world Tony Blair used to send him on. Were they targetted at female heads of state? Foreget ’sending in the marines’. Britain has a far more sophisticated method of targeted oppression than that!
4. Yes, Printz you are right about the niceness. In fact, whenever I see TB and DC together, Smashy and Nicey come to mind.
13. lol
Lewes is probably unwinnable, but somewhere like Telford is the sort of place we need to win to get a working majority. If only one of our allegedly best candidates is prepared to go for it, that implies there is a problem with the list.
I think you would be hard put to it to find many people in the Party who think the A List has worked well. We have
a) Francis Maude’s admission that it is “less meritocratic” than the former system;
b) briefings from “sources close to David Cameron” expressing surprise at some of the people who were placed on the list;
c) widespread reports of sloppy interview procedures;
d) the inclusion of some candidates who achieved very poor results last year, and the exclusion of some candidates who achieved very good results;
e) the inclusion of some candidates with absolutely no track record of having helped the Conservative Party in the past.
9. Commentator, you’ve to admit the approach to the implementation of the A list idea has been pretty incoherent.
16 Andrea.
Perhaps to get a more coherent view of the new conservative approach, we’d better wait for the (white) dust to settle?
15. Sean, us Tories are meant to present a united front or all the lefties will jump on the ‘Cameron is tearing the Tories apart’ bandwagon
Andrea and Sean,
Sean’s main objection and that of Cornerstone and others on ConHome is the promotion of half men half women. It’s this policy that is boosted by the figures today. Cameron is making women’s issues a priority. Candidates, flexible working, Osborne’s childcare speech, the environment, children’s clothing. Everything Sean appears to dislike is feeding into the remarkable recovery thus far.
Those who thought the Tory party was fine as it was with a huge imbalance of candidate sex will never change their minds. Polling evidence suppports the idea that Cameron is on the right track.
I admit I am a Guardian reader, I agreed with its leader today on the A list.
I don’t know if A list candidates have done nothing for the Tory party in the past. Bagshawe says she been an activist in past elections, Rickett may have done the same - I have no idea about him, not read anything. Goldsmith sits on the policy committees. Maria Hutchings was a Labour voter but her strong challenge to T. Blair on her son served the party. Not having stood as a candidate doesn’t equal doing nothing. And anyway, I thought they announced they were looking for people new to politics as well as old hands and professional politicians. Some soldiers, nurses, teachers etc would be welcome. Andrea may have the link but there was an article about the women’s pressure group signing up many “political virgins” - teachers etc. I believe that the voting public will look kindly on these people whether or not they have stood as Tory candidates in the past.
A Simon Heffer article in the Telegraph says that “Real Tories” would be sixteen per cent ahead, given all Labour’s problems.
Perhaps the question should be “why is Cameron doing so badly with male voters?”
Actually, Commentator, my main concern is to get people who are competent and capable. Social engineering rarely achieves that, which is why, for example, we don’t allocate degrees on a 50/50 basis.
And having read the Guardian Leader today, I can only say that following their recommendation would be a recipe for losing Bromley (something which would doubtless delight that Leader writer).
Sean, many would argue with you that a party with 178 male Mps and 17 female ones employed social engineering to promote men. If women could not get selected except for unwinnable seats in the past, that is negative discrimination. In my view Cameron was right to reverse this.
At ay rate Sean you have in the past been less than thrilled with almost every distinctive Cameron policy - yet his approach clearly appeals to the voting public.
And especially to women. After this poll I don’t think there will be any retreat on the promise to promote women candidates.
#20 Ford - my guess is that they are waiting for the policy reviews to come back. Cameron has made strong law and order moves recently.
22 - I agree to an extent Sean which is why I’m glad to see that Bromley are being allowed to select whoever they like.
I read the piece by David Burrowes and a lot of it is very sensible when it comes to winning marginal seats. But we cannot have a party that is composed solely of political streetfighters/glorified local councillors. There has to be a system of bringing in people who offer other talents in terms of formulting policy etc.
20 -And if David Cameron listened to Simon Heffer we’d be about 16% behind Labour.
24 Commentator. “Cameron has made strong law and order moves recently.”
Well, they passed me by !! … what moves ??
Death by hanging for misplaced counter chocolate oranges ??
A hundred lashes for stroppy SKY reporters ??
27 He made some odd statements in Manchester
28 Ford. Well there’s a thing !
23. Commentator, my critic wasn’t for the idea per se, but for its implementation. The choices of the first seats didn’t seem to be so successful. They wanted A lister to apply for many seats, but they’re turning down the less winnable ones (well, individual are rational persons….South Northamptonshire is better than Lewes!). And there were a couple of other “problems” in and there.
So something should be worked out better.
Commentator: “Cameron is making women’s issues a priority.”
How so? Cameron is making the IMAGE of women’s issues a priority.
Has he ‘jumped on’ John Prescott over the allegations of sexual harrassment (far worse than the Tracy affair shennanigans)?
Has he heck. It’s still very much a man’s world in the new turquise Tories.
27. mmmmmmmmm lashes takes me back
bluestudent - no, don’t worry: we accept on the site that there are varying shades of opinion within the parties, so we can get an interesting discussion instead of an exchange of rhetoric. You can disagree with another Tory and nobody is likely to make anything of it. There has only been one case so far of a regular poster changing sides (it was the story of the day), so we’re not converting each other anyway, however cunning our arguments.
I think it’s an accurate generalisation that men are *on average* more likely than women to brood over policy detail (although the norm for both genders is not to!) and women are more likely to get a general impression from the TV news. So as we would I reckon all accept that Cameron’s approach so far has been impression-heavy and policy-light, you’d expect a greater impact on women. The jury’s still out on how people will react when some Tory policies appear.
Does anyone know if there are significant gender differences in newspaper readership? The Mail is supposed to have made its breakthrough by discovering a huge market among women for lifestyle stories, and with the Express it occupies the middlebrow sector of the market, making this sector entirely hard Tory. The Mirror flirts with middlebrow stuff but is still identifiably redtop.
Once again, Mike, you have picked up a very interesting piece of information tucked away in the detail of a poll.
Clearly, a major ‘missing link’ in Conservative appeal since the heady days of John Major in 1992 has been the support of women voters.
Is there any polling/research evidence to back my theory that women voters have been the bulk of the ’stay-at-home’s in the 2001 and 2005 elections?
30 Andrea. I’m not sure why Lewes is on the Tory list. Baker has improved his maj from 1300 in 97 to almost 8500 in 05. As Sean has indidcated this appears a pretty safe Lib Dem seat.
32 S Penketh. Steady on Admiral …… keelhaul a few Lib Dems over lunchtime and you’ll feel a lot better !
“Does anyone know if there are significant gender differences in newspaper readership?”
I certainly do and there certainly is! The NRS topline readership figures are here
http://www.nrs.co.uk/open_access/open_topline/newspapers/index.cfm
The Daily Mail is the only newspaper to have more female readers than male ones - 55% female. The Sun’s readership is 58% male, the Express is almost exactly 50/50 male/female, the Mirror is 53% male, Telegraph 52% male, Times 57% male, Daily Star 72% male, the Guardian 60% male, the Indy 56% male and the FT 71% male.
Sean Fear, re the A list. As a fellow (if sometimes lapsed) Tory I share your instinctive dislike for this kind of sociological meddling in the democratic process - half women/half men etc - why not half thin people/half lardbuckets?
However. We have to remember two things. 1. At least we haven’t gone as far as Labour with their crude, sad and even more unfair all-women-shortlists.
2. Something like this was probably necessary, I fear, to rebrand the Tories. That’s what Cameron is striving to do - to remove the bitter aftertaste from the word ‘Tory’. Such was the soiled nature of the brand, it was going to take more than a few fluffy speeches about wellbeing to get things back on track. If it takes an A List for one or two elections, so be it. The important thing is to get Tories back into power so they can do things we all want to see: democratise the EU, reform the public sector, ease the tax burden, sort out immigration and asylum, unshackle the police so they can deal with crime, bleach the body politic to remove the horrid smell of this fungal government.
Compared to those tasks, an A list or two is small beer. Though I accept I am not an activist and don’t know how this policy is working on the ground….
DC is ‘policy lite’ deliberately. His costitutional duty is to ‘hold the govt to account’, not to present alternative policies. His party’s policies become relevant when he is pitching for votes; strictly, during a GE campaign, in practice in the run up to a GE.
DC judges—probably correctly—that there is no strategic or tactical reason to concentrate on policies either.
A more valid crititism of DC is that he seems to be ineffective at homing in on the govt’s shambolic management of most departments.
He seems to be much better at rebuilding the tory brand than being an effective leader of the opposition.
37 Congratulations Sean! Hope that your new daughter is always blessed!
On the BBC have just seen that the police are taking legal advice over the proposed mergers… Any chance Home Office may be ultra vires?!?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5032080.stm
I am sorry Mike but I think this is really a non topic based on unreliable poll results from subsets . If you take the 2 Yougov polls in March and compare subset results , you could have run a thread on ” Why are Conservatives losing support amongst men - down 3% from 36% to 33% in 3 weeks ” . Agreed the apparent change is greater for the subject of your thread but trying to identify trends or even current levels of support is very liable to error.
# 30 Andrea, I think that is a fair comment. I read the FT link provided by ConHome, not only is there no retreat but they seem determined not to put no hoper seats into the list next time. However I would agree that A listers should be obliged to apply for the winnable seats that remain.
39 - Cleveland Police Authority aren’t saying it’s ultra vires, they are saying it’s irrational, which is a completely different head of judicial review. I can’t say I fancy their chances if they try to review it in full, although perhaps they can delay implementation.
Interestingly in the US the Democrats have had a gender gap in their favour for many years. However, it’s really a large gap amongst single women where abortion rights are important and also single parents who are drawn to the democrats on economic grounds. Republicans do better among married women. In the UK abortion isn’t a party political issue but it would be galling for Labour if after all their efforts on child care, nursery schooling etc they are losing out to DC. Iraq may be a factor; I suspect the war’s more unpopular amongst women. Prescott may be another short term factor. GB’s having another baby; better get the PR machine going.
#40 I think Mike points out in the header that this reflects a general trend in other polls. What has changed in this poll is the vastness of the lead. But more data is needed to confirm the trend. Two or three more months of more women voting Tory and you can bank it. On present form it looks at least probable
Does Sean Fear oppose this A-List principally because it will serve to thwart his own very obvious ambitions?
I don’t think that is at all fair on Sean. Even though I disagree with his attitude towards the list, thr numbers seem to show pretty plainly that women could not get a fair hearing from selection committees before the A list - he is clearly dedicated and if I were on a selection committee, I would put Sean forward.
I think Sean’s anti-Cameronism colours his judgement at times with regards to his analyses of results. But they are still highly valuable.
The Tory party is a broad church with room for many shades of opinion.
Regarding the dramatic switch by women to DC, I wonder how important in this is Cherie Blair’s £7000s worth of haircuts in a month? We all know what women are like - I bet there’s millions of female voters lazing around at home right now thinking ‘i’m not voting for the husband of that jumped up Scouse hussy, mutton dressed as lamb, I tell you…’
Ladies, I’m joking! (Well, kinda. I do wonder if there is an anti-Cherie thing here, as well…)
45 - I don’t think Sean applied for it. I would be spitting blood over the A-list if I were a Tory. The Times has reported just one applicant for Oxford West, one for a barely winnable Labour seat, and two for Lewes. This bunch of chancers who David in his wisdom has appointed as the future of the party evidently have their eyes on a number of safe seats in the pipeline but have no interest in the grind of getting elected anywhere where it might involve lifting a finger. If I were a vaguely ambitious Tory, on the executive of an ambitious seat or simply a party member in Lewes, I would be frustrated to say the least.
RE Lewes, Sorry I don’t see this as an unwinable seat, and the longer it is treated as such the longer it stays Lib Dem.
If we want it back we are going to have to work at it at local government level county level etc. but more importantly we need to get a candidate there now who is going to stay there until after the next GE and start campaigning now.
It may take two GE’s to do, but doable it is.
I don’t think anyone can deny women voters are the key to winning the next GE, therefore if the system which the Conservatives have used has managed to produce a massive 17 female MPs, something needs to be done, it’s not good enough to say, oh but were compromising on standards, it’s just sounds like the same old excuses from the same old public school Tories, I don’t see how that helps the Conservative Party? What Labour did in 1997 with all women shortlists may have been extreme, but it worked and better still it created a better impression. The A List in comparison to all women shortlists is far more tame, and these sorts of changes are needed if the Tories are to be taken seriously.
David Burrowes tactics may have worked in in the GE in 2005 but I remember the tory candidate in his seat in 2001 was dreadful, and to top it off, the swings around the suburbs of London were generally quite big in 2005, so combine these two and his victory wasn’t that improbable, but this seems to have been lost on him. Right wing Tories obsessing about how ‘local’ a candidate needs to be might do well to remember that under such a silly logic Thatcher didn’t deserve to be selected for Golders Green & Finchley (from Grantham, over a hundred miles away), nor William Hague (he’s from Yorkshire, but he’s from Rotherham not Richmond) and that arch angel of the Tory right, Michael Howard, whose seat is in Kent (but he’s hundreds of miles away, from Wales).
The point I’m making is that in selecting a candidate, how local they are can be a factor but no the determining one, simple as that. For by elections it might be better to play safe and select a local candidate to ensure a hold, this might be the best way for the Tories, given their amazing awful record at by elections over the last twenty years.
43 blue moon: it’ll be interesting to see data for the midterms, but for the presidential elections the best indicators of where Americans vote are: race (particularly for Blacks and Jews, previously also for Hispanics), “religious” denomination (especially amongst evangelicals and atheists), income category and then gender
This http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/prg/greenb/women.pdf is a good paper on women’s votes under Clinton.
Since I’m not on the Approved Candidates’ List, Fulham, the answer to your question is very obviously No.
Well considering I’m from Bury south I’m very pleased seats like mine and Lewews are selecting early it means we have a better chance of overturning large majorities on seats which we should be doing better. In fact its spreading the appeal of the tory party back fromm where we have retreated from in recent times.
Luke good point
This brand new emphasis on local as in presently local, not becoming local, would mean - no Thatcher, no Howard, no Hague, no Cameron. If we go down the Shadow Cabinet or past Tory Cabinet how many of them were originally from the seats that elected them?
49 - Exactly. Lewes is a tough nut to crack now (as are some of the others on the list) but it is not a Welsh mining town. if a Tory rolls his/her sleeves up it is possible to get it - and if they do, they will probably be there for life (possibly longer!). The fact that A-listers don’t want to trouble themselves to go for it speaks volumes about the sort of people on the list.
#52 Sean. Do you want to be?
26. Max - re. Heffer you are spot on. His Telegraph columns have become a ridiculous self parody, reminiscent of the cringeworthy John Junor years ago in the Daily Mail.
Re. the male/female thing - I think this is probably just statistical noise. I can see why Cameron might have more appeal to women voters than male ones, but not on this scale.
53 - Trouble is that the people on your A-list cannot be bothered trying to spread the appeal of the party. A bit of grim reading for you:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2204379,00.html
I completely agree with you - select early and give it a go. Except DC’s “elite” candidates don’t want to get their hands dirty.
48/49 James/Benedict I think the fact that both Lewes and Oxford West have around 8,000 Lib Dem majorities and have attracted so few Tory takers may be related !!
There are far easier morsels for the A listers to try and digest than Norman Baker and Evan Harris.
“David Burrowes tactics may have worked in in the GE in 2005 but I remember the tory candidate in his seat in 2001 was dreadful, and to top it off, the swings around the suburbs of London were generally quite big in 2005, so combine these two and his victory wasn’t that improbable, but this seems to have been lost on him.”
Southgate was the 114th most marginal seat, so I’d say it was still a pretty good result.
Commentator @56 - I am a realist about this.
20 - “Why is Cameron doing so badly with male voters?”
- answer - (apologies for sweeping stereotypes, but we’re necessarily dealing with generalities here):
1) Men are more reluctant to change their minds. That’s not to say that they won’t, they just need more of an excuse to. Once it’s DC v GB, that excuse will be there. A challenge for both men.
2) Men aren’t going to be particularly impressed by a party trying to make itself look more female. They might grudgingly accept it, but you can’t expect them to be enthusiastic about it. Hence, support amongst men budges almost not at all.
Cameron certainly beats Ming on the cuddle factor, but as soon as DC comes out with nasty Tory policies I think the LD vote will go up again.
This A list does seem to be a bit of a mess, but I can’t see it getting outside the political intellegentia.
And congratulations on your new baby sean!
61. Honestly - dodgy data leads on to sexist rubbish.
I’m surprised at the A-list’s reluctance; the essential idea of the list seems to be a plausible quid pro quo: the candidates get a big leg-up in selection, and in return, broaden the party’s appeal in winnable but not ludicrously safe seats. Baker and Harris are probably secure, barring an LD collapse; but making serious inroads into their majority would keep an A-lister in good stead for next time.
Having said that, who wouldn’t prefer a safe seat to a difficult one if it were on offer? This is one problem with the concept; candidates for marginal seats should really be chosen as early as possible if they’re non-local, but the best candidates are likely to hang back if the chance of a good seat is available.
Lewes is not unwinnable. The majority did decrease from 2001 to 2005.
When voters realise that electing Libdems will not remove the Government, then seats like this will be very marginal.
64 etc… I don’t really know anything about Lewes, but OxWAb’s Tory candidate* from last time is on the A-list. Maybe other A-list candidates feel that not only are they unlikely to win the seat, but that another A-lister may well have better links with the local associations to try and reduce Harris’ majority.
*I’m assuming that Amanda McLean is the one who’s applied for OxWAb, please do correct me if I’m wrong!
33-Nick Palmer
A couple of points.
Are your previous comments, that anyone that has had the audacity to call for Prescott to be sacked for his recent conduct, as just being snobbish,also applicable to the growing number of Labour MP’s that want the same outcome?
For the second successive year GB has wasted £ 2 billion of hard earned taxpayers money on the overpayment of his incredibly complicated tax benefits system.
We get the usual feeble excuse that the beneficiaries will have to repay the overpayments, which we know will not be the case, as they simply cannot afford to do so.
When can we expect this waste to end ?
64/65 observer/DC. If the A list is the best the Tories have to offer, why squander the talent on outside chances??
Yes Norman Baker’s maj was cut ….. from 9,710 to 8,474 in spite of the Ashcroft treatment …. a swing of nearly 1.6% !!! WOW.
66 - The idea of charming Tory gents not wishing to tread on the lady’s toes in an unseemly rush for the highly winnable seat of OxWAb is a lovely one. In reality, if Evan Harris’ majority was eight rather than eight thousand, they would not be so courteous. The truth is, as Jack W says, that Tory A-listers are not prepared to put their money where various mouths on this site and elsewhere are. They overwhelmingly can’t be bothered.
RE 59, No Norman is probably not quaking in his boots in Lewes, but it is natural tory territory. We need to win it back, and to do that will take hard graft over years, hence selecting now.
The fact that people who are told they are the cream of the crop don’t fancy it does say lots, it says that they are the reverse of the SAS. (As in they don’t want the difficult fights where as the SAS accept that is their raison d’etre (sic))
Still Crawley has got to look good for next time, much work needed there though.
58&69 - James the suggestion that they can’t be bothered to get their hands dirty hardly stands up to scrutiny given that many of them have stood for parliament before often in seats that were not particularly winnable.
68 - Jack if you have 100 names some of them will indeed have to fight difficult seats unless you are saying there are 100 easy pick ups for the Tories at the next election.
65. I also wonder how solid the majorities in places like Lewes will prove in the face of a big national swing to the Conservatives. In certain kinds of seats, large majorities can evaporate quickly - the two Swindon seats are now very marginal again but in 2001 they had Labour majorities of 17% and 19%
I think the point with the A List is that we are putting the people that are supposed to be our best candidates into our toughest seats. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
69 James - it’s probably not the size of the majority which puts people off so much. Baxter (uniform swing etc…) is predicting that the majority will be reduced to 2.4% at the moment if the opinion-poll-average LD-Con swing can be produced. However, Harris is a good constituency MP and I’d expect even the best candidate to produce a below average swing. If there are a couple of candidates putting their names forward to take on a possibly thankless task, then good on them!
58 well we’ve had a couple i believe express interest and will be selecting soon.
60 - His result wasn’t based simply because he was ‘local’ though, no doubt it had some votes in it, but not enough to deliver the seat. Stating it was 114 isn’t helpful at all. Looking at seats near it and the swings in those seats are - the swing in Harrow East, which is safer was in the order of 7.1%, similar in Brent North, a similar swing in Ealing North, however I don’t think dreadful candidates were selected for these seats in 2001. Mr Burrowes swing was 8.7%, slightly bigger (not massively bigger than the seats I’ve listed), therefore his ‘extra’ swing can be explained by this, and in a small part to the fact he’s local, but that’s a red herring - Stephen Twigg was a local candidate! For him of all people to produce this sort of report is rather silly, he didn’t win his seat because he was local, I think location was the key, had his seat been a marginal up north (in the same level of safeness) and he’d been a northerner instead of a local man of Enfield, he’d still have lost - simple as that!
73 - But that’s the whole point. You’re not, because they don’t want to do it do they? Any thoughts on your constituency chairman’s gaffe by the way: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article622132.ece
74 - According to the article, there is only one (presumably the existing candidate but perhaps not).
39-Anna
Interesting situation, according to various press reports,the next major Labour backbench rebellion is expected if there is an attempt to push these changes through.
With Tony McNulty now responsible for the police it should be the kiss of death for these proposals.
77 I think that’s just the Indy stirring. I’d have read that as “political suicide” and can only assume it was meant as such. I suspect that the journalist phoned the Samaritans in order to get that quote. You’d think that the charity had more important calls to take…
The A list is an honest attempt to improve the mix of candidates and to try and stop 635 individual associations choosing 635 ‘potential son-in-laws’ or ‘potential Prime Ministers’ which has been seen to be the problem in the past.
The A list was put together I believe with certain candidates ‘in mind’ for certain winnable seats. But having called it an ‘A’ list it’s hardly surprising that these candidates have come to believe that they are somehow the chosen elite entitled to a safe seat. Unfortunately therefore many of them have chosen not to go for their ‘allocated’ seat and apply for a safer one instead.
The problem is Central Office have no power to impose candidates on Associations, and they have no way of forcing candidates to apply for particular seats. There is also little prospect of the members agreeing to waive their right to select their own candidates anytime soon, so the Party’s only weapon is persuasion - a tool they unfortunately decided to abandon at the outset.
It is a far from perfect situation, but that is voluntary politics for you.
Of course no-one is addressing the real problem of women in national politics which is that there aren’t enough of them (in any party) in the first place, probably because Westminster looks and sounds like a boys public school smoking room.
68. Jack W, I think in seats where there had been a 1.65% swing from the Tories to Labour you would not so dismissive of the result.
It is right to be very cautious about drawing conclusions from any single poll.But if you look at the wider picture there is an interesting variation between what different polls are suggesting about gender differences in party support.
YouGov consistently shows the Conservatives doing better among women than ICM and Populus polls find - and this difference between YouGov and Populus & ICM has widened slightly since David Cameron became Conservative leader, compared with the period before.
ICM, YouGov and Populus all found the Tory share among men averaging 32% between the general election and December, when David Cameron became leader. In the six months since then YouGov has the Conservatives on average 3% higher among men, whereas Populus and ICM show an average 6% gain among men since Cameron became leader.
ICM and Populus data shows the average Tory rating among women was 32% (the same as among men) between June and December - whereas YouGov put this average a bit higher, at 34%. ICM and Populus both find the Conservative gain since David Cameron became leader slightly smaller on average among women (+5%) than men (+6%). But YouGov data shows Tory support averaging 6% more among women since Cameron took over.
Over the six months of Cameron’s leadership, among men the Tories have averaged 37% on ICM data, 38% on Populus data and 35% on YouGov data, and among women they have averaged 37% according to ICM data, 36% according to Populus data and 40% according to YouGov data (the difference between Populus and ICM figures above is in the rounding - there are fractions of a percentage point between the two sets of data). Populus and ICM both have the Conservatives doing very slightly better among men than women over the past 6 months but YouGov show the reverse pattern - and by a somewhat bigger margin.
80 - Do boy’s public schools have smoking rooms, and if so what do they look and sound like?
81 - I think Jack’s point was merely that it is unlikely to be enough in Lewes. It was suggested that the tide was turning there. But, even if true, at that rate of progress Norman Baker can happily plough on for another quarter of a century, which is not good news for an ambitious young potential Tory candidate for the seat.
RE 83, No Lewes is winable it is just very hard work over a long period of time, and any candidate will have to get down in the trenches and fight.
Regarding the A list, the headbangers on conservativehome don’t seem to like it which means it must be a good idea. For his policy review Cameron has missed a trick, all he needed to do was ask Simon Heffer what he thought and then go and do the exact opposite.
As opposed to t he gender divide, the poll shift from lib dem to green, as noted by Mark Senior, is the one that concerns me. The left libertarian vote is an important one and the lib dem mood music isn’t being very helpful in this regard. If Cameron manages to get the more economic libertarians to switch too (orange bookers if you will) then this would be disastrous. I hope that Campbell and his team are going to assiduously work these two areas.
Re: Nick P - members of each party may well be listened to by other members Nick but common or garden voters are discounted by some (see yesterdays little spat where, as a non member, I was apparently not welcome to comment but members were). Seeing as members can be counted on for their vote it seems crazy to ignore the views of those people who may or not vote for you next time don’t you think? Who am I to complain, I only tick a box every few years?
n.b. these views are my own, they reside in my brain, anyone wishing to check the veracity of this will have to apply in writing for a visitor’s pass. Any suggestion that these are not my views at all but somebody else’s may result in prosecution or at the very least a big argument as to how you’ve come to be some sort of quack clairvoyant……..
35. Jack, I know you disagree, but I think paying attention to seats like Lewes in not a bad idea. It doesn’t mean to throw money and resources at them, but just select early a candidate who can work the seat hard and maybe establish a presence on local media. It’s very difficult to win those seats next time, but cutting the incumbent majority is possible. They should be worked for the future. If you don’t do anything, you will never win them back.
Having said that, it’s obvious that a very ambitious candidate wouldn’t like to get them.
77 - Indeed and the A List should be forced to apply or be kicked off. Similarly those not selected should be closely monitored to see how much help they are giving others.
77. is the Chairman a fan of Gorgeous George?
I think the A List is essential in changing the face of the Conservative Party. The problem is that selection for the list was not as good as it could have been, hindered perhaps by a questionable interview process (didn’t Rik W say he was interviewed by John Hayes). The other problem was that the seats thrown out to early applications were all over the shop in terms of how easy/difficult they were to win. Party officials should have forced all the really marginal seats to select earlier and left the tougher one’s to a later stage, where the failure to get selected would have forced more A listers to apply.
Sorry that went wrong, Post 87 should say:
77 - Indeed and the A List should be forced to apply or be kicked off. Similarly those not selected should be closely monitored to see how much help they are giving others whilst they apply for other seats. I have no problem with soaps stars et al being on the list but do want to know how much canvassing and leafleting they’ve done.
Remember when saying A list candidates should be forced to apply everywhere that they still need to ear a living over the next 3 yrs. An A list candidate in say the Yorkshire/E midlands might think that nursing Folkestone would be v hard to manage with the ‘day job’.
Sean, all I know is that I as a Cameron supporter would be prepared to support you for the list. As I say, it is a broad church with a wide range of opinion.
I have heard it said that Cameron is targeting a demographic. That Demographic is 25 year old females. It is believed that once you have successfully got this group pinned down as supporters other women of different ages then follow the trend followed by men. It is about making a brand “fashionable” and is a long term strategy. If you look at what he has been saying recently there could be some truth in this.
I think the most important thing that happened was the chameleon campaign. Before this cameron had not cemented his position in the Tory party, there were still many doubts. Once Labour did the Chameleon campaign it revealed how they took him seriously as a threat. this then put Cameron up in the estimations of his colleagues. Judge a man not by his friends but by his enemies, Labour showed that they had a lot of respect for their opponent and it was obvioulsy helped by that ridiculous Wednesday.
[84] Benedict White said - and while he was specifically referring to the Tories’ chances in Lewes, it seems generally applicable to me - any candidate will have to get down in the trenches and fight. But why wouldn’t any candidate for any party in any winnable seat do exactly that? The obvious reasons that occur to me are changed personal circumstances since selection (serious family illness, perhaps) and an “unhappy ship” in terms of the local party machine. The former is beyond any HQ’s control, but - and this may be relevant to the Tories’ “A” list - a parachuted high-flyer who narrowly defeats a local councillor for the PPC job isn’t exactly getting off to the best of all possible starts. Yes, I know everyone’s supposed to unite behind the candidate, but that’s only what everyone’s supposed to do.
That said (apologies to Ben
) I suspect Cameron would’ve done better to focus on process rather than drawing up candidate lists. If he could get his party to use primaries as the norm - perhaps based on lists of promises from the register - the political advantage would outweigh the initial costs. And if the Tories aren’t prepared to speculate to accumulate, who on earth will be?
93 - Exactly right regarding the chameleon campaign. I said earlier that the only way to effectively neuter Cameron was to paint him as being unrepresentative of his party, there are plenty of examples of ‘rogue elements’ you could dredge up putting him on the defensive.
In their ‘wisdom’ however they said that Cameron was no different to his party, a campaign so cack handed that they can’t now change to the more effective one above because it’s the exact opposite of what they were trying to say!
I blame Brown.
82 - Yes but who trusts Populus polls anyway?
RE 94, It then becomes a question of the personal charm and hard work of the local candidate to inspire his or her troops.
Re 95, I don’t blame brown, I thank him!
71 Max. Upwards of 60 seats presently !!
72 Fred. If you look at recent electoral history and Tory governments 79-92 you’ll note that the Lib Dems have been capable of bucking Tory swings, indeed as I highlighted last week most Lib Dem seats saw a relative static swing or a pro Lib Dem swing.
81 bluestudent. Firstly welcome to the site. A swing of 1.65% just isn’t enough, not by a long swing !
84 Benedict. There lies the problem. And looking at the opponent, I imagine Norman Baker has a file on each constituent 3 feet thick …. and in triplicate !
86 Andrea. Selecting candidates early is a good idea, but it’s not enough against the likes of Baker and Harris.
83. ‘Do boy’s public schools have smoking rooms…’
You know what, if a Tory MP steroetyped a state school as being full of drugs, violent pupils, with a catchment area solely based around council estates then that MP would be hounded by the media, Labour, the Lib Dems and all the PC brigade… but if a Labour MP stereotyped a public school as made up of pupils who’s parents are multi-millionaires, Toffs, who live in five bedroom mansions, speak the Queen’s English and have chauffeurs to drive them everywhere there’s nothing like the outcry in comparison… people just have a little chuckle about it. That’s what it seems like at times anyway. If I sound bitter it’s because when it comes to Labour saying their ‘mightier than thou’ speaches because the Tories aren’t in touch, and then when Cameron tries to get a broader spectrum of candidates selected people accuse him of just playing cheap tricks it annoys me.
Also, I went to an independent school and I not affraid to tell people that. Yes the pupils were mainly from middle class families, but is that a crime? Were any of them posh? Definitely not. There were plenty from single parent families. Some had parents who were bankers, some builders, some greengrocers, some teachers. Did we have a school song? Yes… so what? What’s wrong with that? Did the school celebrate a ‘founders’ day’? Yes… and I bet Blair wouldn’t mind his trust schools celebrating the anniversaries of their founding. Did our parents have to pay fees. Yes… so what? They chose to pay fees because the school provided good education. Does this mean those parents are millionaires…NO.
OK… rant over, apologies for boring you all stiff but I had to say that for my own bebefit.
Cameron really nice guy, tries hard to change the unchangable, but expensive and risky, would be my line. Can anyone be that nice really? There will definitely a tax charge for his green policies - if they are worthwhile.
i.e. “You have to get behind someone, before you stab them in the back” Sir Humphrey.
99 - er, I think we have a “blue on blue” incident here… James was picking up Marcus Wood’s point, not initiating his own.
Seconds out!
[97] I’m not sure that hard work inspires the troops. It tends to be acknowledged in “yes, X is a grafter, but…” type of statements. As to “personal charm”, given the demographic profile of the average Conservative Association, we’re back to the “prospective son-in-law” factor.
George Walden’s recollections (in his autobiography) of his constituency association should be compulsory reading for any “A” lister
Obviously that shouls say ‘benefit’ not ‘bebefit.’
98.”86 Andrea. Selecting candidates early is a good idea, but it’s not enough against the likes of Baker and Harris. ”
Jack, with that kind of attitude, you will never win seats.
I see that some people just assume that some Libdems are just unbeatable and stop. Without a change of attitude from opponents, they’ll continue to be so.
Many times I hear/read that a candidate is popular and hard working, he/she ends up losing!
101. But that’s not the point… the point I’m trying to make is the public school stereotypes are ridiculous.
RE 102, it is the combination. If you are parachuted in, have all the charm of John Prescot and play Croquet all day, your association is probably not going to be inspired!
105 - but you implied they came from “Labour, the Lib Dems and the PC brigade” whereas in fact the wording you’ve taken exception to came from a Tory PPC!
104 Andrea. I think you recount the attitude of many Labour and Tory activists. Lib Dems are barnacle like in their attachmemnts to their seats. The best chance their opponents have is the first election - Guilford and Ludlow. Rendell in Newbury is the exception that proves the rule.
Presently there are about a dozen Lib Dem seats vunerable in the currant political mood. But the rest to varying degrees seem relatively safe. As I’ve said before hence the Cameron coalition mood music from the Tories.
105,
Only public school stereotypes are ridiculous?
What about all the gender stereotyping on here,today.
WRT candidates I had to laugh at the description of one (unnamed) Tory candidate, mentioned by “Biodun” on ConservativeHome. It appears he did not get on the A List.
“He had no personality whatsoever. He told me he was only on the council to boost his chances of getting into Parliament. He sneered at voters behind their backs, after chatting to and grinning at them on the doorstep. He was particularly contemptuous of his female Labour opponent, laughing at her and saying she was as thick as two short planks. He lost his seat, against the trend on his authority. The local association appeared to consist of him, his family and friends”
108. Jack, yes, they’re difficult to unseat once they win it. But the opponents should work those seats hard to reduce their majorities (or at least not to make them become bigger). There’s no a written rule that Harris should increase his majorities (infact he had a 1.6% swing against last time. Nothing spectacular in both directions).
Last time you complained about Colchester. It’s a classis example. Bob Russell is already 60. He’ll probably do another GE, but who knows what he’ll do in 2014 (or when the election will take place). If the LDs still have a 15%+ majority when he stands down, they’ve good chances to keep it. But if the tories manage to cut his majority under 10% next time, they’ve a good chance when he stands down.
Your attitude will make just their life easier.
106.
I don`t know some might be secretley admiring him, a bit on the side at 68, a nice third home in the country, deputy PM.
The working class lad has done good!
107. The wording from James was merely the catalyst for my outburst on general stereotyping of public education. I didn’t mean to imply a directed attack on him, but it was aimed at the stereotypes which are well known across the political spectrum. My comment on “Labour the Lib Dems and the PC brigade” simply shows that I belive that political correctness is getting out of hand, it’s against the public education ‘image’ that people seem to have, and that the left are peddling it’s course. It also shows how politically biased I am.
bluestudent I think the comment you are taking exception to is mine.
I went to a prep school (but fortunately my parents ran out of cash and I ended up safely in the state school system) and I am a Conservative PPC.
In my experience the stereotype of public schools being lagoons of 1950’s middle class utopia is wholly and totally valid, and frankly they *are* stocked with kids from wealthy familes with ‘five bedroom mansions’ - at least compared to your average comprehensive.
You are lucky to be able to enjoy and benefit from a private education and should not be so sensitive about criticism.
There are plenty of state schools where drugs are an issue, where violence is endemic and those kids and their poarents often -unlike you- have no choices open to them which is why your complaint is in frankly poor taste.
109. dez, did I say ONLY public school stereotypes are ridiculous?
111 Andrea. I’m entirely pragmatic about the Lib Dem problem. If the Tories were lucky enough to have me as candidate (Guffaws stage right
) then I’d much sooner choose a Labour seat with a 4,000 majority than a Lib Dem one …. perhaps even with a slighty smaller maj.
Agree with your point about retiring Lib Dem MPs ….. although even there Lib Dems seem to hand over seats quite well.
115,
Yes you did, just making the point that all can be at times over simplistic.
117 - actually, he didn’t. He merely only mentioned the one. He didn’t say it was the only one
99 - If a Tory MP stereo typed a state school like that, he would be hounded rightly by the media, over 90% of students in this country go to a state school, such a stereo type would pretty much be condemning the vast majority of people in this country. It might not be fair that those who go to public school are stereo typed but they are such a small minority and not all of them are millionnaires and I have no doubt some are of modest means but those who go to public school are undeniably privileged.
What Labour has done with education isn’t perfect but the amount of talent I seen (and no doubt many others) wasted amongst my peers (young people) even under Labour would no doubt have been far worse under the Tories, who refuse to commit similar levels of spending as Labour, until recently under Cameron. Even then right wing Tory MPs grumble, that’s what I call out of touch, when such ungrateful people seem not to care about the vast amount of talent wasted in British schools which they are unwilling to spend more on to improve, if you want no such thing as society, you got living proof in such MPs.
Funnily enough, catchment areas are no predictor of if your students will have a drug problem, ask Prince Harry at Eton! In fact many of the top public school seem to have a problem with drug taking students and as for violence, some have been in the media about it! A stereo type about drug taking at certain public schools seems far more accurate than one about a state school.
Once again everyone is talkin Tory…. DC working here…
[116] You are Sir Nicholas Fairbairn and I claim my pair of bespoke tartan trews
114. Marcus… I didn’t at all mean it to be in poor taste and I sicerely apologise if you took it that way.
My comments on any stereotypes of comprehensive schooling were MEANT to be grossly exagerrated in order to show how ridiculous the stereotyping of the education system as a whole is. I was showing both sides of the coin on how people can stereotype public AND comprehensive schools but that I think stereotyping state schools is criticised more than stereotyping public schools. I don’t judge people according to what type of school they went to!!! The only reason I could go to the school was because my father was a teacher there, so my parents got reduced fees, and because my aunt and uncle are loaded. Believe me, a family where the only ‘breadwinner’ is the father who’s a teacher is NOT loaded.
And, by the way, drugs and violence was at times an issue at my school as well.
116. Jack, sorry, but that kind of attitude gets on nerves! (naturally in a nice way with you!
108. A few historical examples also show it is quite possible for what appear to be pretty safe Lib Dem seats suddenly losing that status. In Feb 1974, the Liberals narrowly won Bodmin, but by 1979 it was Tory with a 21% majority. The majority in North Cornwall was 19% in Feb 1974 but 9% for the Tories by 1983.
‘Thorpe effects’ were surely at work here, but there are other examples from the same period where the spectre of Rinka cannot be easily invoked. Hazel Grove had a 14% Liberal majority in Feb 1974, but was lost in Oct 1974 and had a 26% Tory majority in 1979. Montgomery (a sleepy rural seat unlikely to be volatile, one might think) had a 17% Liberal majority in Feb 1974 but was lost in 1979. Longer term, the Isles of Ely and Wight had big Liberal majorities in 1974 as well but were both lost by 1987 (despite a famous candidate in Ely or Cambs NE as it then was).
So it could well be that several current ’safe’ Lib Dem seats will fall either in 2009 or the next time around. Andrea is thus IMHO right - seats like Lewes have to be fought seriously.
117. dez, with respect I never touched the issue of gender stereotyping.
118,
True, thats what I meant to say, he only mentioned the one, they are all in some ways over simplistic, and there is always exceptions to any of them.
20 - “Why is Cameron doing so badly with male voters?”
- answer - (apologies for sweeping stereotypes, but we’re necessarily dealing with generalities here):
1) Men are more reluctant to change their minds. That’s not to say that they won’t, they just need more of an excuse to. Once it’s DC v GB, that excuse will be there. A challenge for both men.
2) Men aren’t going to be particularly impressed by a party trying to make itself look more female. They might grudgingly accept it, but you can’t expect them to be enthusiastic about it. Hence, support amongst men budges almost not at all.
by Cookie May 31st, 2006 at 10:21 am
This may be the explanation.
RE 119, The Labour government are pumping more money in. In primary schools kids on free meals used to atain abou 80% of the standard of everyone else which is a sad endictment and needed work. They now attain 43% which shows just how well Labour are “improving” things for those on the bottom rung.
116/23, Jack, my dear, it wasn’t at attack against you….just an overall thought (not even directed to you). hope I didn’t offed you!
Interesting point re the 25 year old women campaign. FWIW it seems that Labour is doing its damnedest to annoy this same demographic - what with John Prescott’s office down-below-jobs (can I say that?), Cherie’s £8bn haircuts, stark failures at the NHS, embarrassments over crime-and-immigration, the tragic and unsolvable mess that is Iraq with all those nice 25 year old squaddies (someone’s boyfriend, someone’s brother, someone’s son) dying pointlessly, a general sense in government of seedy and incompetent bachelor boys (and Tessa Jowell) grabbing all the goodies while they still can. If I were a 25 year old woman I’d go for that nice DC any time.
Indeed the government at the moment is like a noisome teenage boy: awkward, gauche, greedy, punchy, irresponsible, lazy, lying and inept.
Maybe that’s why men are still prepared to support Labour. They recognise themselves aged 16 and a half.
125,
I know sorry my mistake,was just widen it from that narrow field.
126. dez, I accept that there are a huge number of stereotypes, but I was concentrating on the educational institutions. Godness knows how long a post would be if I tackled every stereotype.
131. Sorry, I didn’t see this post until after I’d posted 132.
[130] Cherie’s £8bn haircuts - rather puts Gordon’s little tax credit overpayments problem in its true perspective, I feel…
124 - Yes Fred you are right - though the ‘Thorpe effect’ was not solely responsible for the dreadful South West results the Liberals had in 1979, I suspect Jeremy Thorpe would have had a close shave in North Devon even if he hadn’t been mired in scandal. There is also the historical example of 1970, where of course the Liberals lost half of their seats and again suffered a near wipe out at the hands of the Conservatives.
BTW - With regards to candidates fighting a seat more than once, it might be worth pointing out that Gerry Neale fought North Cornwall in October 1974, reducing Pardoe’s 8,000 majority to 3,000, before being able to win by a similar margin in 79.
124 Fred. Some interesting seats there ….. and of course some have returned to the yellow column. Further the position of the Lib Dems in 06 is somewhat stronger than the seventies Liberals.
121 Andrea. Typically “uninformed” as ever !!