IT’S NOT A David Cameron thing, it’s a Gordon Brown thing. Women don’t like the Chancellor. Much has been made of the Conservative Party’s sudden “lead” in the opinion polls. This is in fact a notional lead at the next election if the parties were led by Mr Brown, Mr Cameron and Charles Kennedy. And the shift in fortunes is entirely down to women switching sides. The latest Populus polling for The Times, which mirrors other recent surveys, shows a three-point Labour lead today changing to a six-point Tory lead at the next election if Mr Brown is Labour leader.

And it is women who swing it. Among men, there is no change: 37 per cent would vote Labour now, and will still vote Labour under Mr Brown. But among women, 40 per cent would vote Labour now but only 34 per cent at the next election if Mr Brown were leader. And the really strong shift — a massive 20 per cent fall — is among C1 women: nurses, pharmacists, the lower ranks of the police, clerical workers and secretaries. Of these, 45 per cent say they would vote Labour now, but only 25 per cent with Mr Brown as Labour leader. There is the Cameron bounce. Or, rather, the Brown slump.

There is something about the thought of Mr Brown as Prime Minister that turns these women off. Gordon Brown as Chancellor is a winner — remember how he rode to Tony Blair’s rescue at the last election? The Prime Minister had virtually to shackle himself to Mr Brown to pull himself up in the polls. Yet when they envisage Mr Brown in No 10, a significant number of female voters — enough to win the Tories the election — seem to prefer the Tories under Mr Cameron. Or perhaps they just prefer Mr Cameron, which is a different thing entirely: his youth, his optimism, his apparent lightness of touch.

Yesterday the Chancellor gave his answer to the challenge posed by the Tory upstart. In a speech with unusually poetic touches, Mr Brown tried to counteract accusations of lefty paternalism by ramming home the message that he does recognise the limits of government — look at his decision to grant independence to the Bank of England — and that he sees a 21st-century State as an enabling rather than a commanding force. Mr Cameron makes the mistake, the Chancellor believes, of accepting that there is such a thing as society, but believing that obviates the need for government.

Turned on yet, girls? Mr Brown may be right in thinking that that sort of message ought to press the right buttons, but it doesn’t mean that it will. Women, the Chancellor believes, will look at what Labour has delivered through Sure Start, nursery places, child tax credit and maternity leave, all emphasised by Mr Brown last night, and contrast these with Mr Cameron’s record in voting against all of it. The Conservative leader has only superficial appeal, which will fade. The Tories’ new emperor has no clothes.

Which may be just how these women would like him. Even The Times’s own Caitlin Moran, not normally one to fall prey to passing fashion, dubbed Mr Cameron “fanciable” this week. I suspect, though, that the Tory leader’s “good looks” are just a media myth, propagated by journalists who admire the David and Goliath way that he has taken on giants such as Jeremy Paxman and Tony Blair and scored a few hits. We like a performer. Certainly I haven ’t heard anyone outside the media describe Mr Cameron as good-looking.

And fanciability cannot explain the shift among C1 (and, but in a much less dramatic switch, C2) women to the Tories if Labour were to be led by Mr Brown. That is something more subtle. First, these are the groups that tend to feel the squeeze of higher taxes before others (because other groups are wealthier or in receipt of more benefits), so it may reflect a fear of Gordon Brown the socialist that will be fairly easy for the Chancellor to deal with. Already he is making moves to tighten the public purse-strings.

But there is more to it than that, because there is no shift away from Mr Brown among C1 men. There is something far more ephemeral going on here and it could prove much harder for the Chancellor to tackle. It’s the would-you-have-him-to-dinner test. Female voters seem to prefer the thought of Mr Cameron in their living rooms, on their televisions, night after night. Gordon Brown’s so grim, as one put it to me: a grim Scot with a grim mission to ban everything.

This is unfair: the Brownites are passionately opposed to the sense of grim pessimism embodied for them by what they see as the Blairite agenda of insecurity and fear, but you just wouldn’t be able to tell it from the Chancellor’s face. Just as Mr Blair’s grinning chops don’t look too gloomy. Meanwhile, Mr Cameron talks up issues such as the environment that appeal particularly to female voters. It may all be empty rhetoric so far, but women like to hear it. Just as women probably respond to Mr Cameron’s messages about giving women the financial means to work out their own childcare rather than telling them to put them in children’s centres. And they are struck by images of the Tory leader with his children, a pose Mr Brown refuses to strike with his son, John.

What is Mr Brown to do? He believes that the electorate admires the fact that he is a substantial character who refuses to do things — remove his tie, pose with his son — for image’s sake. Voters may like the look of Mr Cameron, but they suspect he might be superficial, and they still deeply mistrust the Conservative Party; there is plenty for Labour to investigate and exploit. Without all women shortlists, it is hard to see how the face of the Tory party can be transformed. Those selection panels are grimly defiant of political direction or sense.

Yet Mr Brown will have to do more. He may be right to scoff at manipulating his appearance, but in this instance being right doesn’t matter. Being elected does, and for that, appearance counts. Think of the image Mr Brown’s team presents when they portray the Chancellor relaxing: he watches football with his brother over a beer. Be still my beating heart. The girls are going to demand a bit more from Gordon than that.

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