What’s behind the gender voting changes?

The above chart was prepared by Ben Page, CEO of Ipsos-MORI, and shows the changes on the 2005 general elections broken down by social class and gender.

Ben has aggregated all the MORI polling data for the first nine months of 2009 and compares it with what happened at the general election in May 2005. The overall increase in the Tory share is 8 points but notice the big difference between men an women. The former have seen only a 6 point shift while with the latter it is 11 points.

Traditionally women were more likely to be Tory than men but all that changed in 1997 with the arrival of Tony Blair. The women then were more likely to vote Labour in 2001 and 2005 but now all that has changed.

This is in spite of the “female friendly” measures that Labour have pushed through and the promise of more to come.

New BPIX poll. Just keeping up with the mass of polls from the YouGov stable is getting quite tough. As well as the ICM survey overnight there was a BPIX/YouGov poll in the Mail on Sunday one day after a similar survey in its sister paper the Daily Mail. the shares are with changes on the day before – CON 43 (+1) LAB 29 (+1) LD 16 (-4). So Clegg’s party loses one fifth of their support in 24 hours – a change outside the margin of error.

BPIX is continuing its indefensible practice of failing to be transparent. Despite regular criticism it has refused to join the British Polling Council and does not provide its detailed data. YouGov should stop doing the fieldwork for its polls unless it moves into line.

Mike Smithson