This isn’t a headline I was expecting to read: ‘Free schools could be a bigger negative for the Tories than Ed Miliband is for Labour.’ Given that Miliband’s net satisfaction ratings are minus 39, that was quite a shock. Do the people who disapprove of free schools really outweigh the people who approve of them by a bigger margin than that?
Well, no, they don’t, obviously. The headline, which appeared on the blog of Mike Smithson, a left-wing gadfly, was a reference to a YouGov poll on 20 June. Respondents were asked whether they supported or opposed the creation of free schools: 23 per cent were in favour, 53 per cent opposed and 24 per cent undecided. That’s minus 20, not quite in Miliband territory. But not good, definitely not good.
The first question I asked was: ‘Is it me?’ I’ve spent four years relentlessly promoting free schools — I’ve helped set up three — and I clearly haven’t been doing a good job.
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