SKY NEWS – MURNAGHAN – 10.00 – 2.10.11 – DEBORAH MATTINSON AND ANNA SOUBRY MP DEBATE WOMEN VOTERS AND THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Now then, female voters are the key to any election success but it appears that the impact of some of the coalition policies are beginning to turn women voters off so what does David Cameron need to do to win back so-called Worcester Women?  Well joining me to discuss this from Westminster is the former Labour pollster, Deborah Mattinson and Conservative MP, Anny Soubry, who is in Leicestershire.  A very good morning to you.  Deborah, if I can start with you, just in terms of what it takes to get a party elected in this country or nearly elected, the female vote is all important.

DEBORAH MATTINSON:

It absolutely is, yes.  Women are critical in electoral success and the truth is you can’t win an election without support from women and in one way or another, women voters have swung pretty much every election since the 1945 war, you know, pretty much very election women voters have been critical.  What has happened, what we’ve seen is that since the 2010 election, the coalition government had a reasonably strong lead with women up until the last few months when it has just started, the gap has started to narrow and at the same time, we’ve seen the satisfaction gap growing, so there is now about a ten point drift between women and men in terms of satisfaction with the government and what we’re seeing now in very recent polls is that women are actually starting to drift away from the government.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Oh right, well Anna Soubry, a worry to you then as a female Conservative?

ANNA SOUBRY:

Well as a woman I don’t like stereotyping as you can imagine.  It is right, let’s be honest about it, there are some sections of women who are falling out of favour as it were, with the coalition government.  Now that’s simply the case and that’s deeply  regrettable and it is something that I know the Prime Minister takes seriously as indeed we all do and we have to address that but I think we have to look at why that might be and certainly it is a fact that there are more women working in the public sector, so as the cuts come in to force – and that is something which is very unfortunate but we  have inherited this deficit – I am afraid they are going to impact on women more than they impact on men.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

I mean specific policies you could look at as well, I mean Child Benefit, that’s presumably not very popular either with women.

ANNA SOUBRY:

No but I must say though, from the emails that I received, it was as unpopular with men as it was with women and clearly people were unhappy about that but I think to be fair, as people have understood the financial situation that this country is in, they appreciate that in difficult times we have to make tough decisions but I think there are a lot of good things that we’ve done.  One of the things that we’ve done is we’ve looked at the fact that so many women in particular want more flexible working arrangements and that’s something that we’ve encouraged.  There are things for example like the extra amount of money we have given to Rape Crisis centres and if you look at government, we have a number of ministers in important positions who are doing a first rate job.  I have to say this about the Prime Minister, and I know it from having been a Conservative candidate in the run up to the election, I don't think any other party leader has ever gone out so much and put himself forward being absolutely determined to get more women involved in politics and more women into parliament.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Deborah Mattinson, that’s as maybe, he hasn’t helped himself, has he, by a couple of exchanges that he’s apologising for today on the front pages of the Sunday Times, a couple of exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions, a put down to Nadine Dorries and Angela Eagle on the Labour bench.

DEBORAH MATTINSON:

Well no, it doesn’t help and what women feel is that they are taking the hit particularly on the economy and they’re right.  A survey last week showed that women’s incomes had dropped in real terms 8% across the board and this is real and I’m seeing this in focus groups where women are actually angry.  Men are perhaps able to take it a little bit better, they are saying well let’s wait and see, but the women are angry and they feel that the government isn’t listening to them. In fact Ed Miliband has a lead over David Cameron in a poll that my company, Britain Thinks, has just published, he has a lead on listening. They don’t feel that David Cameron is listening.  Maybe that will change this week, it certainly needs to.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Well let’s see if Anna Soubry has got any ideas on this.  That’s interesting, Ed Miliband doesn’t lead the Prime Minister on an awful lot of areas but leading in Deborah Mattinson’s poll on listening, what can he do to change that Anna Soubry?

ANNA SOUBRY:

I absolutely don’t accept this principle or this basis that it’s all women.  It is some women.  You can’t generalise all women into one category and say that we all think the same because we clearly don’t and if I may say I think we’re falling into a chauvinistic trap that blighted the progression of women for many centuries so it’s wrong to say all women.  Some women, I accept but not all women.  Can I just go back on this business about what the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons?  I think it is very important to understand that in Prime Minister’s Question Time there is a great deal of what we call sledging, and both sides do it and cricket lovers will know what sledging is.  It is when basically you start heckling the other, your opponent, to put them off and that’s what happened and the PM didn’t do the best of jobs on that but I was there, specifically on the Nadine Dorries incident and he did not mean – because I saw it – he did not mean to put her down in the way that came over at all.  It was just unfortunate and everybody started laughing and he fell into the giggles as well but it was not a put down on a woman and I would absolutely defend him on that.  I  think you often judge somebody on who they are married to and you only have to look at who the Prime Minister is married to, a strong competent woman, a woman in her own right and that says a lot about the Prime Minister and where he’s coming from and how he gets it about women today in a modern society.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Deborah Mattinson, I don't think anyone – and the Prime Minister can probably stick up for himself on this – I don't think anyone has accused him of being anti-women or even a sexist but he is not getting the message across then, what could he change?

DEBORAH MATTINSON:

That’s right.  To be honest I think the exchanges in the House of Commons are one thing but what really matters to women, and of course Anna is right, it’s not all women but there are enough women who feel, who are very hard hit by what’s happening in the economy and that needs to change.  I think 32,000 women have already left the jobs market because they can’t afford childcare, older women are looking at the pension changes and feeling really worried that they are going to miss out to the tune of about five grand a piece.  These are real issues, this isn’t about a bit of banter in the House of Commons, and they do feel that the government isn’t listening.  They thought it was, now they think it isn’t and it’s a problem.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Well we’ve certainly been listening with interest …

ANNA SOUBRY:

Can I just say …?

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

I’m sorry we are out of time, Deborah Mattinson, Anna Soubry, thank you both very much indeed.