Women voters leaving the Tories in droves
Women voters are leaving the Conservative Party in their droves, according to a new poll.
The bad news comes on the eve of the party’s annual conference in Blackpool.
This could be Iain Duncan Smith’s last conference as leader if he fails to convince the party faithful that he is the man to lead the Tories, according to critics.
Tory MPs are increasingly frustrated that their party has failed to eat into Labour’s popularity, despite Mr Blair’s summer of discontent over Iraq, Dr David Kelly and the lost byelection in Brent East, which went to the Lib Dems.
The Tories fell from second to third place in the constituency.
The Mori survey shows an overall five per cent drop in women’s support for the party since 2001.
According to the Mori poll, since 1992, the time of the Tories last election victory, the share of women’s votes plummeted 16 points from 44 to 28 per cent.
Older women and middle-class women have been particularly put off by Tory party politics.
The number of middle-class women backing the Tories dropped from 43 per cent in 1997 to 41 per cent in 2001 and 34 per cent now.
Duncan Smith took over the reigns of the party in 2001.
Mori also noted a three per cent drop off in support for the Tories among women aged over 55 since 2001.
This group, the so-called “blue-rinse brigade,” makes up about 20 per cent of the adult population.
It is similarly depressing news for the Tories among younger women. In 1997, 32 per cent of women aged between 35 and 54 backed the party but that figure has dropped six points to 26 per cent.
The poll was published in a Fawcett Society report entitled “Women’s Votes and the Conservative Party 2003.”
The poll asked 8,548 women in a series of polls between January and June 2003.
