Do people really hate free schools – or do they just hate me?

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. Admittedly, they’re popular with parents, with those free schools open since 2012 oversubscribed by an average of three applicants per place. The secondary school I co-founded is oversubscribed by ten to one. But the general public is sceptical. Even Conservative voters aren’t convinced, with 30 per cent in favour and 46 per cent against.

Has my obnoxious personality doomed the policy? When I was at Oxford I described myself as having ‘negative charisma’ — I only had to walk across a crowded room in which I knew nobody and nobody knew me and already I’d made ten enemies. As an aside, I think Ed Miliband suffers from the same problem. It’s not what he says, but the manner in which he says it. Something to do with his intonation and body language as he’s speaking.