One of the more interesting things emerging from the recent Reform surge is that there is a clear gender divide opening up. For the three big parties in terms of seats the gender spread is between two and four percentage points whereas Reform there’s a nine percentage points skew in the latest YouGov poll.

In my experience, such as the Indyef where women were less likely to back independence than men, women are more cautious about major change and voting for Reform does bring that.

I am not sure Nigel Farage blokeish approach will narrow this gender divide, nor will having an MP who has been previously jailed for assaulting his then girlfriend help.

But this is gender split is one to watch over the coming months and years, my hunch is that if gets wider then Reform will do worse than the headline polls suggest.

As we can see the gap is widening since the election from this analysis by Ipsos on how Britain voted in 2024 .

TSE