Happiness Index – a Licence to hector and nanny more like!

by | Nov 15, 2010 | civil liberties, Health, Just plain weird, Please fuck off., Politics, Righteous Wankers, UK Misery, Well I never. | 1 comment

I spotted this one in the papers this morning and it’s also on the BBC News website now (emphasis mine) :

The government will attempt to measure the happiness of UK citizens, it is expected to announce later this month.

The Office for National Statistics is to devise questions for a household survey, to be carried out up to four times a year.

This follows calls by David Cameron, when leader of the opposition, to look at “general wellbeing”, arguing there was “more to life than money”.

Almost 30 MPs have signed a Commons motion, proposed by Lib Dem Jo Swinson, arguing that “promoting happiness and well-being is a legitimate and important goal of government“.

Ms Swinson said: “This is a positive and forward-looking move by the government, which will give us a much better idea of the health of UK society.

“Relying solely on GDP to track the nation’s progress excludes many of the things that we all know to be important, but that can’t be measured by money.

I assume they mean more hectoring. more nannying, more “advice” on how you should be living and, of course, more taxes to pay for more outreach workers and most likely “happiness enhancing officers”.

The best thing that the government could do is to get out of our lives and allow us to live as we wish – anything else is none of their damned business.

At least the article has one voice of sanity rather than the usual tossbag rent-a-quote :

But UK Independence Party MEP Godfrey Bloom said it was an attempt “to invoke voodoo sociology in the service of a bigger and interfering state”.

“I can guarantee that the only results of this proposal will be greater spending, greater bossing around and a decrease in happiness across the board,” he added.

Indeed!

1 Comment

  1. Bucko

    “happiness enhancing officers”.
    Will that not be Happiness enforcing officers?

    What a load of rubbish. It will just be an excuse to tell us happiness is more important than money, once they’ve taken all our money.

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