THE wives of the three main UK party leaders have become more and more prominent as polls showed their husbands struggling to change public opinion.

 

Samantha Cameron, Justine Miliband, and Miriam Gonzalez Durantez have all hit the campaign trail in an attempt to win over voters.

Viewed as major assets by the three campaigns they have also been as likely to be seen without their husbands as with them.

Significantly both Samantha Cameron and Justine Miliband have also contacted party supporters and activists through mass emails, a technique normally reserved for professional politicians.

Mrs Cameron's message read: "I wanted to email to say a huge thank you for everything you've done to help the Conservative campaign so far."

For her part, Mrs Milband sent out an email setting out her schedule for where and when she would vote, in Doncaster at the early hour of 7am, and asking others to share their own plans on social media.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of the election campaign has been Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's wife, Ms González Durántez.

In 2010 she famously resisted doing much campaigning, insisting that she too had a very important job as a lawyer.

This time around, however, she has been much more to the fore, in part as a promoter of the Inspiring Women campaign to get more female role models into schools.

But she has insisted on putting her own spin on things.

Revealing that she has run a secret but public food blog for the last three years, she added: "When my husband's advisers learn this they are going to freak out."

She also hit out at the media management that surrounds politicians' spouses, especially if they are female.

"Unfortunately, general elections are not seen by political advisers as good times for wives of party leaders to be attending fashion events," she explained at one such occasion.

"They are way too glamorous," she said. "They would much prefer us to stick to the realms of kitchens and children."

"But," she added, she was not going to be bound by that, as she believed in "getting women together, and learning from each other".