The topline polling data for anyone who wants to check. I don't think it's been updated with the latest
Ipsos MORI and so may be missing a few others as well.
If that break number is accurate (7-3 in favour of Yes, closing the margin by 40% of total DK's in that chart) then Yes would win in a few of the recent polls, although none of those include a Wouldn't Vote option and so the total DK's might be lower than shown.
There has been a general tightening in the polls recently, which could be where the 7-3 split numbers are coming from. The question there is whether that sort of break can continue going forwards. I've not seen any attempts to polling 'leaning' voters, so it could have been the Yes leaners breaking early while the No leaners now make up a majority of remaining DK's.
Even in the best polling conditions there it would come down to a GOTV effort by the Yes campaign, or a major shift in the last 100 days. Either of which is possible, but unlikely.
What doesn't make sense about this? If the coalition is giving you bugger all then you don't enter into the coalition.
This idea that they didn't get anything out of the coalition or that entering it was 'spineless' doesn't make any sense. It's empty rhetoric that ignores the facts of the situation in favour of taking popular but content-devoid jabs at Clegg. I'd expect it when people are campaigning against Lib Dems, but not in discussions of reality.
As to today's big news, Ofsted have released their review into 'Trojan Horse' efforts to bring extremist Islamic views into six schools in Birmingham, placing five of them under special measures. The
BHS have a lengthy summary of both the report and the advice note that went with it.
One BBC story on it, but there's a lot more around the site and quite a few aspects to the story that are fun to dig into (Tory ministers fighting among themselves - yum!). The Guardian had a
liveblog with their usual mix of unlabelled editorial (although less snark than usual) and summary, and their editorial line has been very critical of the whole investigation.
I think that some of the discussion around this is messy. Quick thoughts;
1) Talking about 'extremism' in this context is misleading, especially when directly tied to terrorism (as May has very deliberately done). Violent extremism is rather separate to this question. This is more about hard-line religious conservative views being given a governing and privileged role in schools, notably supposedly secular ones.
2) A lot of this is about what Islamic beliefs are acceptable within British culture. While the schools here were secular with the policies being snuck in by governors, there is little difference practically or politically between such things being taught here or in private or state Islamic religious schools. Just now Gove has denounced such radical views as a 'perversion' of Islam, which basically makes the British government a judge on what valid or 'perverted' Islamic views are. More generally,
this.
3) I don't think Ofsted are the right body for this sort of thing. Given how recent some of the schools were given good reviews they obviously missed for whatever reason the problems they found now. Either it wasn't considered a problem, it was successfully hidden or the recent investigations were looking in different places with a specific mandate. The latter seems most likely.
4) Gove wants to force all schools to promote British values. Sure. What are those please?
5) May and Gove have both been humiliated and engaged in a very public version of the usually hidden party infighting that makes governing parties extremely unpopular when revealed. Which is completely irrelevant but amusing.
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