We know that he worries about this because he has said so. A couple of remarks directed at women in the Commons that were seen as patronising or, in the case of his fellow Conservative Nadine Dorries, even humiliating, occasioned an extraordinary public attempt to reassure the world at large that the Prime Minister is not a misogynist. "That's not what I'm like, that's not who I am," he pleaded before the bar of female opinion. His poll ratings among female voters are indeed low, and would be lower still if the leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, were not even more despised by women. Miliband's failure to register his name on his first child's birth certificate may have been forgiven by the mother whom he only afterwards married in haste; but it has not been forgotten by the female half of the electorate, who are inclined to regard such an omission as indicative of an unreliable character. Men don't change: before the couple had a second son, Sam, this year, Miliband did not turn up for his National Childbirth Trust classes. As important as marriage and fatherhood, he told the Labour Party conference, was "starting to tell Daniel, my older son, the stories my Dad used to tell me". The father in question is Ralph Miliband, the Marxist firebrand, who seems more of a looming presence for Red Ed than for his brother David. Unlike Cameron, Miliband seems awkward in the role of New Man. But the Prime Minister has some way to go before he can hope to match the appeal of Tony Blair, everywoman's ideal father, son or brother. No contemporary politician compares with the natural charm of the former Labour leader. (How frank it was of Ed Miliband to blurt out to his activists: "I am not Tony Blair." How frank  — and how fatal!) 

Cameron's slight insecurity about his moral identity has had important consequences, however. His speech at last month's Manchester party conference was driven by a perceived need to reassure women that he is emphatically not a macho type: "I'm not a sort of ‘all right luv, I'm down at the pub tonight'. That's not me. But obviously I've come across in this way." Has Cameron such a boorish reputation, despite the best efforts of his eminence grise Steve Hilton to present him as the suave moderniser, caring father and uxorious husband? His membership of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford, a notoriously drunken undergraduate drinking society, and more recently of White's, the most socially exclusive club in London, lends it credence. Whether this suspicion lurks behind the polling figures, which suggest that his support among women has slipped over the past year much faster than among men, is hard to measure. Negative stereotypes only acquire significance when voters are already dissatisfied. Women had practical grounds for complaint before they saw the unedifying image of Cameron, flanked by a leering Nick Clegg and grinning William Hague, guffawing at his own innuendo while Nadine Dorries (already the victim of smear tactics at the hands of Gordon Brown's thuggish aide Damian McBride) salvaged some dignity by walking out of the chamber. How, though, did the Prime Minister go about convincing women that he was not one of the lads?

Almost immediately after his Maoist-style public self-criticism, Cameron was faced with a challenge to his closest female Cabinet colleague, the Home Secretary Theresa May, from the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke. Though May outranked Clarke, his seniority as the only septuagenarian in a largely inexperienced Cabinet gave him the confidence to put her firmly in her place. The issue at stake was not a trivial one: should the human right to family life override the law of the land? A Bolivian, who was granted permission to study in Britain but had overstayed his leave to remain by several years, was due to be deported after a shoplifting offence brought him to the attention of the authorities. His lawyer claimed that his client's boyfriend, who had a sick father, required his presence and offered the court as evidence the fact that they kept a pet cat, known as Maya. The Home Secretary expressed scepticism to her audience in Manchester about the relevance of Maya to the rights and wrongs of deporting illegal immigrants. Cue Kenneth Clarke, who insisted that it was "laughable and child-like" for Theresa May to claim that the court had allowed the Bolivian to remain in Britain merely because he had a cat. The row continued for another 48 hours before both ministers emerged from 10 Downing Street wearing forced grins, Clarke having expressed "regret" for his "colourful language" but refusing to concede the point. Actually, his language  was not colourful so much as illiterate: despite having held ministerial office for longer than anybody else in modern times, Clarke clearly meant "childish" rather than "child-like". But the real upshot of the "cat flap" was that Clarke kept his job. This was not the first time he had embarrassed the government. The central plank of his liberal policy on criminal justice, the reduction of the prison population, was abandoned earlier this year. His comments on rape last April infuriated many women, as he appeared to be justifying "date rape" and suggesting that only some rapes were "serious". However, Clarke's latest escapade suggests that he is seen by Cameron's coalition partners as an ally, even as a fifth Liberal Democrat in the Cabinet. On Europe and other key issues, Clarke can be relied on to vote with the Lib Dems. Hence Cameron left him in place, even though letting him have his breezy way with May has damaged her personal and political prestige.