Will the strikes exacerbate Cameron’s women problem?

We’ve already heard a lot about Dave’s problem with female voters. Melanie McDonagh wrote our cover piece on it in June, and in September there was that memo detailing Number 10’s efforts to respond. But, judging by the polls, we may well be hearing even more about it after today’s strikes.

It seems that, while the government has men broadly on its side in the battle against the unions, women are far less supportive. 51 per cent of men told ComRes that public sector workers are wrong to strike today, but only 42 per cent of women agreed:

TNS BMRB asked people whether they thought that the government was right to press ahead with the reforms, or that public sector workers were right to strike against them. Men sided with the government 45-37, while women took the strikers’ side 43-28:

And on the government’s proposed changes to public sector pensions, 49 per cent of men support them, compared to just 32 per cent of women, according to YouGov:

Of course, the reasons for all this may lie in the fact that two-thirds of public sector workers are women. But whether this is just about self-interest or something deeper, it’s not good news for Cameron’s attempts to woo women.