So, How Happy Are You?

Changing your mind can be a good thing, it means that having reconsidered some of the facts presented before you a change of mind is inevitable, it shows a mature attitude and the ability to reflect on changing circumstances. It can of course be a sign of weakness if done too often or at the behest of the tabloid media (both printed, televisual and radio) whose only desire is to be seen as leading rather than following the zeitgeist.

David Cameron has previously given out mixed messages about a happiness or well being index, he said as recently as 2006 that whilst he believed the idea was good in principle it wasn't right to launch such an index during times of austerity. He has however decided to go ahead and ask the ONS to measure the country's good vibes.

Happiness is an interesting concept, an intangible concept in terms of measurement yet we all know when we are happy and when we are not. Psychologists have long regarded the search for and maintenance of a 'happiness index' to be something of a fools errand. I would imagine that Economists would baulk at the idea of something as leftfield as the measurement of happiness as a way of indicating how a country feels about itself rather than good old GDP.

When I look around at the family, friends and colleagues whose opinions I seek and value I find happiness manifests itself in many ways. My 16 year old daughters idea of happiness is spending all day on a Sunday in her jimmies, eating cereal whilst watching re-runs of some American teen programme, for my wife it's reading crime novels, I know somebody (female) whose greatest moments of happiness derive from standing close to jet engines and another for whom getting so drunk on a Sunday that she can't face work on a Monday is her idea of nirvana.

What is interesting of course is that the countries which traditionally finish top of any international happiness league tables are our Scandinavian cousins: Sweden, Denmark and Norway. These are the three countries who it must be said are quite possibly the polar opposites of a British Conservative idea of happiness. Countries which have high levels of personal taxation, low levels of crime and a Labour party attitude of cradle to grave welfare and education care.

Next years census will ask us how happy we are, I suspect that coming a few months after Christmas, VAT rises, the impact of the spending review and the March budget (date already announced by the way months ahead of normal) the answer could be a lot different to if the question was posed now.