What British Muslims Really Think

It again falls to Channel 4 to 'be brave' and do what the BBC has long been reluctant to do...

This Wednesday Channel 4 will broadcast What British Muslims Really Think and there's a long piece about it in The Sunday Times today by Trevor Phillips from which I'll quote just a couple of paragraphs:

Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else, but with more modest dress sense and more luxuriant facial hair; any differences would fade with time and contact. Britain desperately wants to think of its Muslims as versions of the Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, or the cheeky-chappie athlete Mo Farah. But thanks to the most detailed and comprehensive survey of British Muslim opinion yet conducted, we now know that just isn’t how it is....

I thought this latest exercise would be intriguing. In fact, it has turned out to be astonishing. The data collected by the respected research firm ICM shows what the polling experts call “a chasm” opening between Muslims and non-Muslims on such fundamentals as marriage, relations between men and women, schooling, freedom of expression and even the validity of violence in defence of religion. And the chasm isn’t going to disappear any time soon; indeed, the gaps between Muslim and non-Muslim youngsters are nearly as large as those between their elders.

ICM's methodology was:

ICM Unlimited interviewed a random sample of 1,081 adults aged 18+ who self-identified as belonging to the Muslim faith. Interviews were carried out face to face, in the home, in geographical areas in which the minimum proportion of Muslims was confirmed by census to be 20%. Interviews took place between April 25 and May 31, 2015, and the data has been weighted to be representative of all Muslims by age, gender, work status and region. A nationally representative control sample of 1,008 adults aged 18+ was also conducted, by telephone, on June 5-7, 2015. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

Why isn't the BBC doing this kind of thing?