Murnaghan 13.10.13 Interview with Margot James MP and Katie O'Donovan from Mumsnet on Tory women

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now has David Cameron got a problem with women? Let’s continue that and move it on to the Conservatives. Mumsnet, the website, think he does, they’ve conducted research which shows women are deserting the Conservatives for the Labour party. I’m joined now by the Conservative MP Margot James and by Katie O’Donovan from Mumsnet, very good to see you and following on from what we’ve heard from Mr Kennedy there and the Lib Dems, you have clearly identified and we can see it for ourselves, that the Conservatives have a problem both with representation of women and indeed their perception from women.

KATIE O’DONOVAN: Yes, we did a report with MORI where we looked at their political tracker data and we also did focus groups with our users and we showed that where Labour are leading against the Tories, their lead with women is actually three times greater than it is with men and about 60% of women are dissatisfied with the job that David Cameron is doing so there is obviously an issue there but it is something that touches on all the political parties actually. Some of the personal ratings for all of the leaders were quite challenging, people felt that they preferred, they actually liked David Cameron more than Ed Miliband but they would look to Labour for policies that were important to them – health, education, unemployment and – absolutely vitally – the economy.

DM: It’s an interesting mix isn’t it? Well Margot, what do you think that it says about your own party and your leader?

MARGOT JAMES: Well it is true that among men the Conservative party does have greater support at the moment but the actual margin between men and women is much narrower than is usually reported and much narrower actually than the Mumsnet survey and I think that’s because the polls that I’ve looked at are over the last couple of years and they are all polls and if you look at that, which is a much more representative sample than the Mumsnet survey, the difference is approximately three points between about 32-33% support from women and 35-36% support from men so it is much narrower, the gap, than the Mumsnet survey would suggest.

DM: We can argue the gap or not but overall, Katie, the idea is here that women are clearly saying that on occasions when we are looking at policies that are specific to some of the problems we face and it’s not a matter of how many women you’ve got on your front bench or how many MPs you’ve got, it’s about your policy mix. We can see through a bit of reshuffling here and there but what we want to see is real policies that make a difference to us.

KATIE O’DONOVAN: Absolutely and it was a MORI survey of the general population but I think that is absolutely right, when we looked at whether it was personality or policy, people rated Labour higher on the policy phase which suggests that that might be more important to people. I think presentation is important, I think things get out in the ether, people definitely felt that David Cameron was more out of touch. I think the ‘calm down dear’ got referred to quite a lot in our focus group work, people talked about the House of Commons as braying donkeys and I think people don’t necessarily believe that any politician actually understands their day to day life and understands the challenges that they face and that does translate into specific policies and specific actions. I mean, to give all the parties their credit they’ve spoken a lot about child care over the last couple of months, they’ve spoken a lot about issues that do affect women but if you look at what’s happened over the last four years, we’re still having exactly the same conversations on childcare that we were having at the beginning of parliament.

DM: That’s true and what does Mr Cameron and the leadership do about that, the perception side of it? He talks a lot about the family, we know he is a devoted father but he can’t change his background and that leads a lot of people to say, well you really are too out of touch, you’re too posh.

MARGOT JAMES: As Katie said earlier, he does enjoy better personal ratings than either of the other two party leaders by quite some distance so I think that whatever might be said about in touch, out of touch, basically people have confidence in him as Prime Minister but I’d like to come back to the issue of policies because I think of course women and men are interested in broadly the same issues but there are differences in the way women and men lead their lives still and childcare and caring for older family members is very important particularly to women and I think that we are addressing those issues very clearly. We have the most expensive system of childcare in the whole of Europe and this government is tackling that by giving parents who both work outside the home a contribution towards their childcare costs up to £6000 a year and paying 70% of people’s childcare costs if they are on Child Tax Credits, if they receive Child Tax Credits.

DM: But that’s not getting through then is it, Katie? Do people just not know about that or they don’t believe it or they want more?

KATIE O’DONOVAN: That policy won’t come into action until after 2015. You are entitled to £1200 of the £6000 that you spend on childcare when actually most people or lots of people’s childcare bill is almost as much as their mortgage and it will only apply to people who have children under the age of five and as we know, childcare is a hassle and a problem and an expense right up until your children are 12 or 13, so it is really important that politicians talk about it, it’s really important that they are working for things but actually we are still having the same conversations and, more importantly, childcare is still costing exactly the same as it was four years ago and whilst the tax credit system is being tweaked, it’s being tweaked to address a penalty that was put on a couple of years ago.

DM: But it’s not just about that, it’s about cost of living issues, household budgets and that coming from Ed Miliband about the cap on energy prices and we’ve debated whether it will work or not but as a headline policy how did that go down Katie? Did you manage to survey that?

KATIE O’DONOVAN: We haven’t asked specifically about that but we have discussions on our site all time about people choosing not to put their heating on, choosing to put their heating on or pay for food and it’s an absolute pressure. At the beginning of this parliament VAT went up to 20%, we’ve all stopped talking about that but that’s still having a massive impact for people whose wages aren’t keeping up with growing costs.

DM: So that’s the biggest challenge, to get the message across of whatever sex they are, that we really care about your lives and the cost of living that you’re facing, real inflation?

MARGOT JAMES: I absolutely agree with that but until you can get the economy back and growing, which is what we have done, really you can’t solve any of these other problems and employment and a growing economy is fundamental to women’s lives just as its fundamental to men’s lives and there is no doubt that every economic indicator now is pointing in the right direction and we’ve got record levels of employment, particularly among women so I think the overall economy is benefitting women just as it’s benefitting men and going in the right direction and that will enable us I hope to be more generous with things like help with affordable childcare as we go on.

DM: But what you seem to be hearing is people are saying, women are saying, well look, this jam tomorrow argument has gone on too long and we’re not prepared to wait.

KATIE O’DONNOVAN: I think that is absolutely right and I think it’s right that more women than ever are working, more women than ever are being the main wage earner in their household so what happens in the wider economy is absolutely vital to women, just as they are as interested in health and education, perhaps more so than men. But every political party says childcare is a priority yet we haven’t seen the same focus on that as on perhaps Leveson where they have managed to work together. Perhaps that’s a naïve ideal but it would be nice to see something sooner rather than later.

DM: I’m sorry I’m going to have to end it there. Katie, Margot, very good to see you. Katie O’Donovan and Margot James, thank you very much indeed.