The 1997 general election was the first in which Labour was women’s first-choice party – and the elections of 2001 and 2005 also saw Labour in top position. But the Tories are now challenging Labour for the trust of Britain’s women voters.
The term ‘Worcester woman’ was coined to cover traditional female Tory voters from so-called middle England, who were won over by Tony Blair’s New Labour in the 1990s. Of course, the women’s vote consists of a lot more than just ‘Worcester woman’, but let’s stick with her for the moment. ‘Worcester woman’ voted for us because we looked like her and her family, and because she thought we understood her life and had some of the answers to her problems.
But time moves on. We’ve been in government for 10 years, our faces have been seen, and we might be thought of as stale, wrapped up in the Westminster/London bubble. Where we are defending seats, the Tory candidate may well be significantly younger than the sitting MPs – just consider the numbers of our MPs standing again in their late 60s
and 70s.
Let’s look at the Conservatives – David Cameron may be rich and posh, but he does identify with ‘Worcester woman’ and her family: married, with a wife who works, and young children. The Tories will have a number of women and black and minority ethnic candidates at the next general election, with many of their new male candidates in their late-30s and early-40s. We might well look out of touch with many in the population.
We can trumpet our record – and we should. Labour has significantly increased the rights of women and introduced new measures to support family life. To mention just a few: paid maternity leave has increased from 14 to 39 weeks; two-weeks paid paternity leave; the national minimum wage, benefiting around one million women; and the introduction of the right to request flexible working for childcare and the care of disabled adults.
All positive, and the Tories voted against most of these. But people don’t vote for what you’ve done but what you are going to do.
Today, ‘Worcester woman’ is financially better off, but our consumer society produces more and more things we never knew we wanted – flat-screen televisions, iPods, etc. This ongoing demand produces anxiety.
Of course, life is still a struggle for some – a struggle about money because of more ‘wants’; a struggle about time because of shuttling kids around. We also have a long-hours work culture – you are only seen to be doing a good job if you are there a lot.
We are responding to these different challenges: part-time work is often low paid, which we are tackling through yearly national minimum wage increases; our skills strategy is designed to raise the employability of women; we are promoting a flexible working culture, enabling women and men to better manage their time, including time for themselves; and our 10-year strategy to increase childcare places.
For the future, we need to continue to develop policies that meet the differing needs of women – policies that women know only Labour will deliver. These include many from the government’s response to the women and work commission, with its stress on flexibility and part-time work of a high quality. Other areas are child care, housing costs, education and skills.
We should also not forget the importance of policies on crime, particularly where we are having some success, such as on domestic violence and safer neighbourhoods. By concentrating on these – the issues that matter to ‘Worcester woman’, to every woman – we can continue to be the party that she wants to vote for.