Labour hasnt given working mothers what they really need

By Cristina Odone 634PM GMT eleven March 2010

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Young mothers are deserting both Labour and the Conservatives Photo Getty

Picture Louise at 7 on a weekday morning, a jam-smeared toddler at her feet, a yowling baby in her arms. The notation her partner comes in from his night shift, she"s off, receiving the four-year-old to the SureStart childcare centre. After dropping him off, that still upsets her since she hates handing him over to a period of opposite carers, she"ll go to her pursuit as an bureau manager. Louise usually functions since differently she and her father wouldn"t be entitled to the childcare taxation credit, that can be claimed usually by a integrate who are both operative at slightest sixteen hours a week.

Now, suppose Louise"s greeting as, out of the dilemma of her eye, in in between wiping baby"s nose and slipping on her Shoe Zone boots, she catches steer of Harriet Harman sitting on the lounge on breakfast radio glossy, clear and immaculately turned-out, she is claiming to verbalise for "ordinary women". Can you censure Louise if she hurls one of those boots at the screen? Or, some-more crucially, if, at the ubiquitous election, Louise decides to discuss it the Government what she thinks of it?

Toby Young Sam Cam the domestic associate Gordon Brown and the pitfalls of nursing mothers behind to work My outing to Neverland, and the call from Michael Jackson Ill never forget, by Paul Theroux Myleene Klass a hold of Klass Meryl Streep mom higher It is pristine pomposity to snarl at singular mothers

Young mothers are fed up with being patronised and ignored, and are deserting both main parties but in sold Labour. Geoff Dench, the remarkable sociologist, has analysed census data from the British Social Attitudes Survey over the past twenty-four years, in a investigate for the Centre for Policy Studies. His commentary will send a shudder of fright down the Labour Party"s spine. Where, behind in 1986 some-more than half the working-class mums who were seeking after their immature kids voted Labour, usually twenty-seven per cent did in 2008; usually a entertain of operative age women who stayed at home upheld Labour in 2008, down from 48 per cent in 1986.

Dench"s commentary yield a context for those new YouGov polls display that twenty-nine per cent of women currently would opinion Labour. This is not a standard greeting opposite whatever supervision is in power; this is a light but intense rejecting of Labour"s policies. Little consternation that Gordon Brown"s choosing strategists are targeting "middle-class, mainstream mums".

But this is the celebration that came in to energy with the guarantee of putting women at the heart of the agenda. Under this Government. we have seen some-more women MPs, some-more maternity pay, some-more income outlayed on childcare usually what women want, surely?

Er, no. If Labour had paid courtesy to the own national, 1997-8 consultation, "Listening to Women", it would have seen that removing mothers in to full-time work, and their immature kids parked in state-run caring centres, was never a opinion winner.

So if Labour was not "Listening to Women", to whom was it listening? The cosy careerists" bar that for as well prolonged has monopolised the open discuss on what women want. This little elite, clinging to their high-flying, rich careers, are all unrepresentative of the typical woman.

They are work-centred, whilst the strenuous infancy of women wish part-time work to await their family. They consequence sufficient to means nannies and in isolation nurseries, whilst the infancy of women have to rely on the state for their childcare. They evangelise comprehensive liberty and independence, whilst infancy women delight independence inside of the couple.

Because of their status, these women swing measureless influence, and have been means to figure the Government"s agenda. So we see Labour pumping billions of pounds of taxpayers" income in to a childcare complement that is without a friend with typical mothers; and environment up a taxation complement that penalises the stay-at-home silent notwithstanding justification that the infancy of mothers of immature kids underneath five wish to stay at home.

The chosen have paid for in to the macho worth complement and suffer their membership of the big boys" club. They rate career on top of caring and hold that self-realisation comes usually by veteran success. They do not worth what psychoanalyst Susie Orbach calls the "free romantic services" that typical women allot every day seeking after immature kids and aged relatives, volunteering to review at the hospital, selling for the octogenarian neighbour. Such amicable collateral might be priceless, but for the chosen who assimilate usually cost tags, it is irrelevant.

Most immature mums don"t share this proceed to life. While over half of them hold down a job, they are not meddlesome in a full-blown career that comes at a outrageous amicable cost to themselves, their children, and the village at large. Dench"s research shows that these concerns have been flourishing behind in 1998, during the electorate"s honeymoon with Tony Blair, usually one in 4 women thought family hold up suffered when a lady worked full time, but by 2006 some-more than a third did. A consult of women branch 30, conducted by Elle repository last year, found that the strenuous infancy cherished family hold up on top of veteran success.

Gordon Brown, beware. Capturing these electorate will need some-more than the sell of a couple of emails on Mumsnet or a photo-op with dual generations of singular mums on a legislature estate. Mothers wish policies that encounter their needs not Harriet"s thought of what those needs should be.

Cristina Odone is the writer of "What Women Want", published by the CPS