No sex please we're British Muslims

Apparently it's true - there are no gay Muslims in Britain. Not even one. Well, either that or this survey "a collaboration between Gallup and the Coexist Foundation" on the attitude of Muslims around the world needs to be examined rather carefully.

For example 77% of Muslims said they strongly identified with the UK - which is far higher than the 50% the rest of the population scored. Does this mean Muslims are more likely to love fish and chips or what?

Well, it could be that the figures are saying, as the Independent, Telegraph and BBC claim, that UK Muslims are more patriotic... or it could be the opposite as the Mail and Al Jazeera claim, although they seem to be using different figures, I do hope they didn't make them up.

Alternatively it could be that Muslims in the UK have been subject to loyalty test after loyalty test over the last decade and so when someone asks them "How strongly do you identify with the UK" they are conditioned to ensure they come across as fully integrated citizens. I suspect this figure tells us more about how pressured UK Muslims feel about national identity than it does about attitudes they might have whilst watching EastEnders.

The big headline however is around homosexuality.

Not one UK Muslim respondent thought that homosexuality was "acceptable" compared to 58% for the the UK as a whole. This may well be related to the fact that only 3% of our sample thought any sex outside of marriage was acceptable (compared to 82%) although none of the papers seem to make this important link.

The way this is reported it makes it sound like gay people are being singled out when in fact 97% of respondents (which is quite a lot) thought that all sex outside of marriage was wrong. They would have to be particularly perverse to approve of homosexuality, which by definition does not involve the sanctity of marriage (yet), and not unmarried straight couples having it away.

This is born out when you consider that French and German Muslims found both sex outside of marriage and homosexuality more acceptable than their UK counterparts. To view the two statistics separately seems to distort the information we're getting, although there is certainly no denying that these are conservative attitudes. To me it looks like an anti-sex stat rather than a specifically anti-gay sex one.

But is it right anyway?

But I want to take issue with 0% anyway. It sounds wrong to me. You take 1,500 people and you'll always find someone who thinks something out of step. Whether they think paedophilia is alright or the economy is recovering you'll always find somebody to express an off message idea. So this makes me question how the data was collected in the first place.

I've had plenty of friends who are Christian evangelicals and their attitude seems quite instructive. These friends have no problem being friends with, even flat mates of gay people, with all the boy/girlfriend ups and downs that this entails. However, if you ask them whether as a Christian they think homosexuality (or sex outside of marriage) is acceptable - they'd say no.

I remember going to a bar with a Muslim guy once who asked for a coke rather than his normal real ale "because it's Eide". I think that sums up how many religious people interact with their faith in everyday life. If you'd asked him whether it was acceptable to drink alcohol as a Muslim he'd say no. If you asked him what he was having he'd have a pint of Old Growler. The yes/no box doesn't give us the nuance that we often require.

This is a roundabout way of asking whether UK Muslims were asked the questions in the same way as those in Europe and whether the sample of respondents was collected in the same way. If you ask people at Mosque what they think I suspect you'll get a very different response than if you ask the same people on the street without referencing their religion.

I'd also say that if you got the respondents via religious institutions you'd get a different response than if you simply asked self identifying Muslims when you came across them as part of a larger survey. I don't think it wouldn't take me long to find a Muslim that finds homosexuality acceptable so if I'd conducted a survey that produced this result I think I'd have been strongly tempted not to release the data whilst I tried to find out what went wrong.

It could simply be that UK Muslims felt more aware that they were representing Muslims and were more conscious of making Islamic responses than Muslims did elsewhere. Whatever the methodological detail (which I've been unable to find) a 0% return is as suspicious as a North Korean election result and we have to be pretty careful when drawing conclusions from it.

Good news - only 22% of Daily (Maybe) readers are utter fools

And headlines like that are what makes being an independent minded blogger so delicious.

Yes, I am of course referring to the fact that my poll on whether the moon landings were faked has returned its results and we find that 77% say that they were not, 22% say they were and 1% seem to have fallen through the cracks somewhere. I'd say that this proportion of fools is far better than most of the internet - so welcome to this small pocket of sanity to calm the passing blogette.

But on to more important stuff - I'd like to use the occasion of my last post in my celebratory week to launch a far more significant poll - significant in terms of my life anyway. Many moons ago I started a series of posts on boycotts. You see I used to boycott MacDonalds and Coke for bloody years and one day I just had a crisis of confidence and decided enough was enough and caved in.

Emulating some sort of reality TV like experiment I decided to put my boycotts to the public vote and vowed to boycott whichever two items came top of the list. Except it never quite happened. Yes, like those unwritten suggest a topic posts that I'm currently stuck on. So now the great day is finally approaching. Below is a list of links to posts on various consumables to stop consuming and why. In two days I'll launch the poll and I will, genuinely, boycott whatever the public decides for the forseeable future.

I'm giving two days grace for the simple reason that I want to give you the chance to add to the list before voting begins. If you do want to suggest a boycottable simply leave a comment and briefly outline your reason or leave a link to a relevant site. As long as it isn't silly the public will have the chance to vote on your suggestion.

Boycott list

• Nestle
• Alcohol
• Meat
• Flights
• Bacardi
• Israeli goods
• Coke
• McDonalds
  
• Do not boycott anything
  

I can't tell you how nervous I am about all of this... but a promise is a promise. Voting starts Thursday.

Fantasy Mayor

Further to the previous post about online tools telling you how to vote, even though you know already, the New Statesman has it's very own Fantasy Mayor application.

Unlike last time it actually turned out I was backing the right candidate with nine of my answers matching Sian Berry, two for Ken Livingstone and a surprise solitary match for Brian Paddick.

Actually, my fantasy Mayor would be a twelve story high robot with a spiked tail and a hammer and sickle stamped on his steel buttocks but for now this will have to do.

Oh, and one more thing. The Green election broadcast airs tonight (18.55 on BBC and ITV) and those who've had sneak previews are all giggly with excitement describing it as "visually stunning" and "ground-breaking".

You will be able to view it at Sian for Mayor come the appropriate moment but for those who cannot wait there are advance stills to be found at flickr.

Sexing up the Greens

No, not another April Fools I'm afraid more of a double request.

Iain Dale, top Tory blogger, writes in with a request re his current online political sex survey. Apparently he's lacking Greens; "only had 17 Green Party people take part so far, of who 7% are virgins, 20% are gay and 21% have slept with an MP. I think we need a few more participants to balance it up a bit! Can you spread it around the green blogs and put it on yours?!!!"

My pleasure to oblige, although who's to say whether this is a representative sample or not. I am concerned, if so, at the numbers who are sleeping with the enemy (NB: quick maths tells me that 7% of 17 is one respondent).

Meanwhile, over at Stroppyblog we have a lefty version, inspired by Iain, which I somehow ended up as an advisor on. People might like to take part in both, one or none - the choice is yours.

Survey closed

That was quick! Anyway, I have my one hundred respondents and very interesting reading they make too. I wont be giving you the full report right this second as I want to do some full on number crunching but I'll make a few comments now.

Firstly, thanks to everyone who completed the survey - I hope it wasn't too long for you. I know a few people dropped out of the last question (About You) and that may either be because they didn't want to admit to being a member of Socialist Resistance or simply that people got worn out by the fourth page.

Secondly, there have been a couple of friendly emails asking about why subjects like ideas weren't covered. Well, that's related to the first point really - a shorter focused poll is likely to get higher responses and is easier to evaluate. It's also a subject that relies upon a large amount of qualitative data, which takes a lot more time to work on and assess accurately.

There are also plenty of valid points to be made about exact choices that I gave people. for instance one contributor commented "No SNP on party choices or Scottish Green Party? These are the most left wing parties actually in govt". A very reasonable point, which would also go for Plaid Cymru and the Co-operative Party.

In a similar vein I was also rebuked for not including "Communist" and "Libertarian Socialist" in the list of terms lefties might use to describe themselves. Well spotted those comrades, both should have been included - although I don't feel too bad about it as the list would never have really been "complete".

Now obviously this is a "bit of fun" and not a highly scientific survey but I also think it's important not to draw too many conclusions from the single Solidarity member who replied about his organisation. Which means when filtering the responses I'm mainly going to compare unaffiliated lefties (27.8%) with the entire survey population and also take a look at three groups Greens (16.7%), Labour Party Members (12.5%) and members of other left of Labour groups (43%) none of whom alone gave me more than 10%. Which shows you where my readership lies if nothing else.

But whatever caveats I might like to bring up I still think there are some interesting results in there. For example when looking at the kinds of issues that people thought should be the "important campaigning areas" in the next few years.

As an open question I obviously have to group together responses in some logical way, so "council housing", "social housing" and "treating people that live in council housing less like shit" all get grouped into "HOUSING" - I hope I've been fair when doing this, after all it's the broad brush strokes that we're after.

• Climate change and the environment
• War
• Public services / privatisation
• Housing

Are the top four issues with economic issues, civil/human rights, trade union issues and the rights of immigrants coming in not far behind. Other areas that were mentioned, but by less than ten people each were democracy/constitutional reforms, fascism, women's rights, community, socialism / left unity, international solidarity and self determination for Scotland.

The European Union and Pensions both got just two votes each and only one person mentioned either religion or crime. I found the fact that pensions came so low down the list reasonably worrying and was surprised about the low level of responses mentioning international solidarity (outside of war/peace issues) considering the level of interest that there is in these issues on the left.

The respondents also thought that the area the left had been weakest in over the last few years were the very issues of economic inequality and the cost of living - whilst the best, with a resounding "quite good" was the area of gay rights. Well done us.

More to come...

Survey invitation: the political situation in the UK

I'd like to invite anyone who considers themselves as part of the left or progressive part of the political spectrum to take part in my reasonably short survey about the political situation in the UK.

This survey is the beginning of an investigation into how people feel about the spaces and opportunities (or lack there of) for the left in the coming years. It deals with trade union, and campaigning work - as well as examining respondent's own activities and concerns about those areas they feel the left needs to pay more attention to.

I'm hoping to get at least one hundred responses to give me some numbers to crunch and hopefully get some interesting data, so please do take part if this sounds interesting to you.

To take part in the survey, which should take around five minutes please click here.