Please, stop trying to solve the Women's Vote problem by banging on about childcare

Flicking through my diary this morning, I came across something I’d scrawled as ‘All the Tory ladies’ without further explanation. It turned out to be one of those drinks events for people in Parliament who happen to be women, presumably where we all stand around and talk about how great/terrible it is to be a woman, depending on the sort of day we’ve had. I was reminded of this again by James Kirkup’s excellent blog examining the great power of Mumsnet over the British political establishment. He also charts Number 10’s attempts to appeal to women, by inviting ‘women in the media’ for drinks, trying to get the PM into women’s mags, and creating a good offer for childcare (and if you’re wondering how that’s going, the policy has now descended into the two Coalition parties bickering, girls-school style about who said what when).