Boris Johnson has a woman problem. And it’s not the usual kind he gets into — in fact you might say it’s the opposite. At the ballot box, Boris is a turnoff for female voters. Now, there is a huge six percentage point gap between men and women’s support for Britain’s two main parties.

Wise heads will be worrying about this in Tory HQ. I remember when David Cameron briefly panicked about a drop in his approval ratings among women. He asked all the women in Downing Street to come up with some policy ideas. There weren’t many of us: in fact Cameron had three times as many Etonians as women in his civil service policy unit. But we came up with some great ideas that will have to feature in my memoir some day because they never went anywhere.

But if the wise heads decide to reconvene this policy working group, they’ll be making a mistake. There are plenty of good policy ideas out there to improve women’s lot in our society: the Women’s Equality Party produced a whole manifesto’s worth, which they’ve very generously encouraged other parties to steal. I just don’t think it’s the policies that are the problem. It’s the political willy-waving.