Mary Riddell, writing in today’s Observer about the way the female vote is beginning to slip back to the Tories.

It is a minor tragedy that Brand Gordon is so difficult to sell. No modern politician has a better record on doing good things for women and children. Unlike Cameron, he has a proven track record on social justice, child poverty, SureStart and daycare. Up close, he is engaging, good fun and heartfelt in his attachment to his family. All my female colleagues and friends prefer Brown’s policies and saturnine style to Cameron’s porridge-cooking, apron-wearing, PR-driven smarm.

But we may be in a minority. If women are going Dave’s way, then what is Gordon to do? The usual answer is that he will have to lighten up. That, though, may be neither possible nor prudent. Brown might be much too leaden, but he is never going to win a levity contest with a man liable, if he sheds any more Tory ballast, to shoot heavenwards like a helium balloon.