From your graph, I don’t understand what happened between 29th June and 21st July, when the women were the same as the overall, but the men leapt up. Have i missed something, or shouldn’t the women’s line and the men’s line be consistently equidistant from the line that represents “all”?
I’d love to compare this with the figures on male/female approval of Labour policies, before and after Brown’s succession - I have a feeling that more women than men disapproved of Blair’s foreign policy, for instance, and so the apparently more dramatic return of women’s support to Labour would be consistent with that.

Oops - I’ve looked at it and tracked down the error, one of the YouGov polls on the website links to the wrong results, so that day has the overall figure from a Sunday Times poll, but the male/female split from a Telegraph one!

Hold on a sec and it will miraculously fix itself.

Thanks, that’s better.It looks to me like a double bounce for Brown in both lines
Are there any poll questions on whether people think an early election should be called? I seem to remember there were after Brown took over, but anything more recent? Personally, I think he should wait, and spend the next trwo years trying to build more trust in the parliamentary system (cabinet, whips and parliamentary debate)

John - yep, the snap YouGov poll on Tuesday did, only 29% wanted an election this year.

Anthony,

Not about scotland this time you’ll be glad to know, out of interest do you know of any polls that ask men about womens views on politics and Visa Versa.

We know they tend to vote differently and what issues they differ on, but less about the why of it and what they think of each others reasoning.

In addition, although again the samples would be prettty small what are the age profiles like. If there are clear jumps here it could well influence the main issues in an early election, such as pensions.

Peter.

I think this is probably because Blair was perceived as a liar (especially after the Howard 2005 election campaign) and women probably don’t like men who aren’t trustworthy (unless they flirt the right way, according to this week’s New Scientist!).

Maybe the perceived opportunism of Cameron makes him seem less trustworthy at the moment. If so, the ultimate act of being opportunistic is holding an election in your honeymoon period - so maybe women won’t be so nice to Brown if he goes to the polls now. Better learn to flirt Gordon!

See I told you - stylish is not in fashion! Put away the Versace suits boys and get your trousers stuck in your socks - it’s a winner with the girls

Maybe it’s that 9 months maternity pay that did it!

Perhaps women perceive Brown as a “safe pair of hands”; while Cameron, by comparison, is something of a “chancer”.

In all seriousness, however, I dare say Brown’s Conference speech in which he did not go into “kick ass mode” by attacking opposition leaders and their parties has resonated strongly with female voters, reassuring both Labour voters but, just as, if not, more importantly those who aren’t particularly partisan one way or another.

Maybe there are some women here who could explain for us. Somehow, for some reason, I suspect the vast majority of election annoraks are men!

Lukw: I thin you’re right, correct me if I’m wrong somebody but I think that the regular posters here can almost all be identified as Con/Lab/LD/SNP/other - but I can’t think of even a single regular poster here who could be identified as female.

We have a broad selection of the parties, but not of the sexes - and that is true of most political sites, although many may include a number of the fairer sex, they will almost invariably be in the minority.

Another clear aspect of Browns speech that may have appealed to women is that as well as not attacking his oppnents he spent a lot of it talking about hmself, his background and his beliefs.

By and large women are more inclined to make a judgement ( and usually a more sound one than men) on the person over the policy.

That’s in no way a bad thing, as a slipper politican with great policies, that weasels out of them isn’t much use.

Given that sites like this are mostly about policy and strategy rather than the people involved it maybe isn’t that surprising that few women contribute.

I suppose Anthony could ask YouGov to let him send out an e-mai to all female panel members to invite them to contribute to a particular thread on why men and women vote differently.

On a wider note, perhaps the need to get balanced polls and the lack of interest from certain demographics be they women, occupation or age, is holding YouGov back.

If a balanced poll must have a certain percentage of each type then it stands to reason that the overall panel size and poll size will be limited by the ability to recruit the most reluctant group.

Peter.

I am glad you didn’t spend too much time speculating, on when the next election would be.
That would be a waste of time.

I think Brown as a fairly good chance of success. Lets see how he gets on. But we must remember when an election is held rarely matters.

I also believe more generally that whenever you find a bunch of anoracks to do with anything, most of them tend to be men, in my experience.

One female voter here says ‘you must be joking’. Brown might be popular with females who already vote Labour,and even that I find hard to believe but every woman I speak to thinks he is revolting, in every conceivable way.

Reputedly female and for my part I was glad to be able to feel I could try voting Labour again after TB departed. Suggest some women may be influenced by the fact that he’s not married to Cherie and THAT smile, or a celebrity anorexic. Gordon’s wife looks like a Katie Oxo dependable. Also GB appeared to care when they lost their baby, that’ll help the womean vote.

Anthony, What polls are due this weekend?

I notice there are calls for the BoE to reduce interest rates, I wonder how long it is before they do a U turn and realise the rates are too high and will damage the economy if they are not corrected soon. They are 0.5% too high right now for the good of the economy.

It’s interesting to note that whenever the Tories seem to be doing well in the polls, with a chance of getting elected, the BoE put the rates up and whenever it looks like they wont get in, down go the rates again! Coincidence or partisan views I wonder!!

Nice to see a female anorack on here too dear and don’t forget there were a fair few men that weren’t attracted to Maggie all that much too but she still got elected

Richard - there is a YouGov poll in Saturday’s Telegraph, which has already been reported as showing an 11 point lead. As soon as the full figures are publicly available I’ll put up a post on it. There is a MORI poll in one of the Sunday papers, don’t know which but I’d guess the Observer, and I expect at least one more on top of that.

I said a few days ago that there wouldn’t be an election unless Brown had 3 polls in a row showing him 10% ahead. That’s just happened now, with the Telegraph showing a 11% lead and another one showing a 10% lead, according to BBC 10 o’clock news.

Two polls now showing Labour leads in double figures.

Times Labour 10% lead

Telegraph Labour 11% lead

This must now make it inevitable that Brown will call it in the very near future..

Note the Tories won a seat from Labour on Sunderland Council yesterday. Also note the dire turnouts in the by-elections - will the forthcoming election have a new record low turnout? I wonder if the recent figures showing the chance of having a baby die in childbirth in England is among the highest in Europe affect Brown’s new-found popularity among women? looks from the votes yesterday he’s popular among ex-miners and so he should be after all the money he’s bribed them with.

Wolf,

“looks from the votes yesterday he’s popular among ex-miners and so he should be after all the money he’s bribed them with.”

Yes, I’m sure many former miners have successfully won compensation for industrial-related diseases, if that is what you are referring to and rightly so.