‘You should be talking to more women’. That’s not a line anyone would expect a political consultant to be trotting out to a politician in today’s scandal-ridden media climate. But that, absolutely, is the message that our would-be members of parliament, ministers and – ultimately – prime ministers need to be digesting as we count down to the election. Women voters are absolutely UK politics’ centre-ground. The polling shows that we are more undecided about who to vote for, more open to political argument and less entrenched in tribal loyalty than men. And we are less likely to be certain that we are going to vote – 65 per cent of men are sure they will proffer their opinion in the ballot box, 10 per cent more than women. That is just not OK. And that mismatch in whether people are determined to vote or not is what RegistHerToVote is working to change.
We all know why women should vote. Because we all know everyone should vote. Unless you make your voice, your opinion, your needs heard no one will ever listen – et cetera et cetera. But this campaign is not about just lecturing people on using their hard-won electoral rights. It is about making the parties understand why this matters so much to them. Women are not just half the population, we are the people who, on the whole, are most likely to have genuinely experienced and cared about both public services and the health of our economy. We are the great undecided. While only a quarter of men are still unsure about who they will vote for, 35 per cent of women still do not know. Our votes are up for grabs – much more than those of Mondeo man, white van man or any other breed of man you choose to invent a moniker for.
Over the next three months – right up until the registration deadline – we will be campaigning to persuade women to make sure they have the right to vote on 7 May. It is not that women are the only people who matter. Obviously not. So much credit is due to organisations – from Facebook to Bite the Ballot to the Electoral Reform Society to the thinktank Demos and to hardworking Labour activists – all of whom are playing their huge part in making politics relevant, important and urgent to potential voters. But it does matter that women’s voices are heard loud and clear.
As a lifelong Labour supporter and campaigner, I hope that the women we register will vote for the party I love. And they should. The three issues women tell pollsters they care the most about are the NHS, the cost of living and the cost of caring for their families – sound familiar?! But in the end, I just want us, as women, to have our say in this election. And I am much happier to congratulate the woman who uses her vote to register her admiration of Theresa May or Caroline Lucas than I am to accept the idea that ‘they’re the same so I didn’t bother’.
This is set to be the closest election in living memory. We do not know what the result will be but we do know that every vote really does matter. What better chance to show how powerful we can be? Let’s love our vote on 7 May so that we don’t hate the result on 8 May.
———————————
Martha Dalton is managing director of Lodestone Communications