He's right you know
by Duncan O'Leary
I've come accross a bizarre set of statistics over on the Guardian Newsblog - apparently the British Household Panel Survey has thrown up a link between female offspring and a propensity to support Labour or the Lib Dems.
Prof Oswald and Dr Powdthavee explain the findings by explaining that "through subconscious concern for their daughters, [parents] become sympathetic to the 'female' desire for more public spending and thus a steeper income tax schedule. Similarly, a mother with many sons becomes sympathetic to the 'male' case for lower taxes and a smaller supply of public goods".
As Ross Taylor notes, however, these 'female' desires don't translate very well into actual votes from women in elections. The only conclusion i can draw from this is that the left needs to hope that people have lots of daughters...who then grow up not to vote...until they have daughters themselves.
As i say, bizarre.