Introduction

Abstract

On becoming leader of the Conservative party in 2005, David Cameron inherited a multi-faceted problem with women. His party had few women MPs — they numbered just 17 compared with the Labour party’s 98. Women party members and their party organizations were, if not openly revolting, clearly unhappy with what they considered to have been their marginalization in the previous few years at the 2005 general election. The party’s election manifesto had trailed in third place in terms of policies ‘for women’ and women voters, long associated with the party, appeared as yet unwilling to walk away from New Labour and return to the Conservative fold. Jump forward five years. Ahead of the 2010 general election the Conservative leadership was confident that it would make good on Cameron’s commitment to redress the ‘scandalous’ under-representation of women in the parliamentary party. There was talk of the likely election of more than 60 women MPs. The party’s women’s organizations also looked healthier, with sell-out annual conferences and new formats and, most high profile at least around Westminster, the establishment of an independent, but associated, ginger group, Women2win. New women’s policies had been developed too, not least on employment and the work/life balance, which the party believed would be well received by the women of the country. On May 6^th 2010, Election Day, this confidence looked to have been mostly well placed. The Conservatives more than doubled the number of their women MPs, to an unprecedented 48, rising to 49 three weeks later, following a delayed vote in one constituency. The Tories’ general election manifesto was more competitive on the women’s terrain this time around too. And early, if by no means definitive, analysis of voting (Campbell and Childs 2010) suggested that the party might have done well amongst middle class women voters, the so-called ‘Mumsnetters’.

The sound of modern Britain is a complex harmony, not a male voice choir.¹