Britain's comic Prime Minister

Ted Smith

All of this proceeds from the absurd premise that it is the job of government to make everyone happy. Here in the states, most of us believe that the best government can do is keep out of our way so we can "pursue" happiness.

Why should government measure what it cannot deliver?

TomTom

Cameron is a Comic, that is why those members in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire chose him in preference to David Davis.

Cameron is the lightweight to help us float above catastrophe like a music hall act with Clegg and Osborne.

Read the German press this morning - Die Welt - about Ireland and contrast and compare !

Herbert Thornton

Absurdity in Britain has reached such heights already that it begins to seem possible that Cameron will soon establish - along the lines of Human Rights Commissions - a Human Happiness Commission.

Its most basic function will be to enforce the duty to be happy. It will of course have the power to investigate, and if necessary punish, people who decline or obstinately refuse to be happy.

Imagine the headlines -

"In sequel to terrorist bombing of north London school when Police arrested weeping parents, Happiness Commission upholds terrorists' complaint and orders the parents to pay heavy compensation. Commission Chairperson declares that the bereaved, in defiance of the general duty to be overjoyed, incited others to be unhappy and in particular attempted to reduce the terrorists' feelings of delight and satisfaction."

Derek BLADES

Ms Phillips may not know it but those stuffy old economists and statisticians at the Paris-based think-tank - the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develoment - have been developing "happiness indicators" for the last three years or more. Having invented GDP in the 1950s the OECD is now looking for other ways to measure human progress. Happiness is difficult to quantify but it can be done.

Sarkozy and Cameron are two recent converts to what is really a very serious and worthwhile project. Good luck to them.

Nick

Given the choice between Blair, the man with the blood of 200,000 Iraqi civilians on his hands, or Jester Dave, give me the Bullingdon Buffoon any day.

Oflife

Dystopia arriveth, or a genuine concept with sincere motives, but poorly explained when announced.

M.A.Sin

I strongly recommend Ken Dodd as minister for Happy Happy. If Blair's heir appoints Ken we will all be happy happy.

Andy M

'Given the choice between Blair, the man with the blood of 200,000 Iraqi civilians on his hands'

Nick: you need to get your facts straight, this is clear and demonstrable falsehood. Why do you and so many other with Blair derangment syndrome continue to make yourself look like complete morons.

Melanie: remember our PM is a former PR man.

Mark2

I dread to think what would have happened had Labour suggested this!

The Club Landlord.

Dave's more of a happy slapper than a comedian.

Leo

David Cameron’s grasp of reality has now reached a scale approximately equal to that of Prince Charles i.e. utter senility.

When he proposed that Turkey join the EU I prayed that he was joking or that he has some hidden agenda. This policy may actually be illegal since he simply ignored an EU resolution which states that the Turkish Government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide is an “insurmountable barrier” to EU membership.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Well we have the Big Society (sic) so why not The Big Laugh!!!!

Nick

Andy M, my apologies, perhaps you can provide me with an accurate figure for the number of Iraqi civilians who died as a result of Bush and Blair's little adventure in the Middle East.

Accuracy to the nearest 10,000 would be sufficient. Blair is a War Criminal, and should be tried as such. Cameron is just a buffoon. A silly arse, with a pig's bladder on a stick.

Rebel Saint

I think you're being a little to glib with this one Melanie.

I actually applaud the government for trying to gauge the state of our nation on something other than the economy.

Mustapha Bunn

Dave could easily push up the happiness indicator if he gave everyone in Britain the opportunity to vote in a Referendum on membership of the EU... simple !

Louis Berk

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Britain has become a country which worships youth. The end results is that the kids take over the sweetshop. We had nice-but-dim and inexperienced Major, followed by intense lower-sixther and inexperienced Blair (who kept his equally callow buddy Brown sidelined until he at least grew up) and now we have Head Boy Cameron - whose main career experience has been in PR. How about electing leaders of our main political parties who are, dare I say it, more experienced by dint of age? Then perhaps you'll get some serious policies and decisions being made.

TomTom

"the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develoment"

kniwn as "The British Treasury in exile"

King Otto & Queen Syllabub

My first reaction to this, as to the news about Druidry beige recognized as a religion was to laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of these. Unfortunately, not here where Somebody has suffered a hunour/iroy bypass. Nothig but grim grinding of teeth and snarls of disapproval with the usual "O Tempora! O Mores!" moans.
Come on!! Whatever happened to the land that gave birth to Carl Giles, Marty Feldman, the "That Was the Week that Was' crew and associates and, of course "Monty Python" et al.
Talking of which, why does't someone evoke the "Happy Valley" sketch-'There were no complainers, moaners or grumblers because wise old King Otto had had them put to death, alog with the Trade Union Leaders, many years before, Everybody danced and was happy. And any one who was not and had any difficult personal problems, was prosecuted under the Happiness Acts'.
Keep Frowning Lads

michael

Gaiety....enthusiasm....can do.
for the age of post gloomism.

Well its got to be better than the inevitable doom of that merry dance ..... Grey Gordons.

SZ

Perhaps Cameron, like his spiritual precursor, utilitarian Jeremy Bentham (the inventor of "felicific calculus"), will also bequeath his embalmed body to the nation as an "auto icon" of materialistic dimwittedness.

SZ

Perhaps Cameron might also revive Bentham's mnenomic for the utilitarian felicific calculus:

Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure—
Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek if private be thy end:
If it be public, wide let them extend
Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:
If pains must come, let them extend to few.

Graeme Thompson

Paying off the enemy so they dont bring Court cases and discover our security secrets is perhaps one of the better wheezes of the Prime Minister. Oh, and giving prisoners the right to vote. Maybe he feels so straitjacketed over these issues he has actually gone doolally as a result?

Derek Pasquill

Cameron's foreign policy speech last night - comdey gold.

Dschiboomda.

osred

Wih less and less real power to disopense, its inevitable stuff like this is undertaken. Nature abhors a vacuum and so do vacuous politicians

Neil Craig

"Ignore the fact that even in good years we have ensured Britain gas a growth rate half the world average & 1/4 China's - economic success doesn't count any more, we have a brand new & infinitely maleable measure of success. Trust us"

alan campbell

"Here in the states, most of us believe that the best government can do is keep out of our way so we can "pursue" happiness.."

Yes, and what a very happy place the US is.

alan campbell

The trouble with red-in-tooth-and-claw marketeers is they only see the price and not the value. Measuring general well-being, if done properly, will examine education and health levels, teen pregnancies, suicides, drug dependency, stress-related illnesses, levels of involvement in the community and the workplace, levels of trust. These are all areas where the indices have plummeted in the US and UK during the experiment of the last thirty years; at the same time as GDP has risen. It's time to realise that a rising GDP is meaningless if life is becoming more and more sh*te.

DougS

My happiness index would shoot off the scale if he junked all those rip-off 'green' taxes and money wasting 'green' subsidies.

But I'm not holding my breath!

Michael White

Maybe some questions will be:

1. In these times of austerity, does spending your tax contributions to commission the Office of National Statistics to produce this set of questions make you feel:

(a) happy
(b) really happy, or
(c) ecstatic?

2. When people are always getting over excited and negative about new initiatives like - for example - this one which is without question immensely beneficial, do you feel:

(a) irritated
(b) really irritated, or
(c) furious

3. The EU is a great place to be:

(a) very strongly agree
(b) strongly agree
(c) agree

JJ

While I normally agree with you I think a national well-being index is actually a good idea. Psychologists, sociologists and others have been studying general well-being for decades and it's not as impossible or subjective as you suggest. What's the good of economic growth, a welfare state, full employment, etc. if people aren't happy? An index like this could allow people to determine what seems to make a difference to happiness -- and I suspect what people will find is that public safety in their communities, religious involvement, work but not overwork, and other things will be correlated, and this may help design public policies that will increase general well-being. For one thing perhaps the Church of England can finally be disestablished, so a free market in religion can be unleashed to stimulate greater overall religious participation. As Adam Smith observed (and as modern social science has documented) clergy of an established church tend to "repose on their benefices" and do nothing, draining all energy and enthusiasm from religion.

Saltirethinking

Personally, I feel better already.

Leo

The only thing that David Cameron could do to cheer me up would be resign.

Robert of Ottawa

Hasn't anyone yet told this snooty socialista that he lost the election?

Linda Smith

Maybe Cameron is hoping to "prove" that happiness is not dependent on having material wealth - so he can tax us more.

Edward Henning

I am not sure if the policy regarding Gross National Happiness in Bhutan produces a statisic of any kind, but it is certainly popular and generally considered a success. Don't judge this too quickly...

Derek BLADES

JJ makes some interesting points in support of David Cameron and the happiness index.

The one thing that consistently correlates positively with happiness is an even income distribution between households.

Anybody interested in actually learning about the ongoing work should visit the OECD bewbsite - www. oecd.org - or look at some of the happiness/welfare indices. The United Nations has its Human Development Indictor. Several others are available through the Erasmus University website ‘ www1.eru.nl. And since you ask, the most recent index I saw put Costa Rica and Denmark at the top of a list of about 150 countries. The United States came 20, the UK 26 and Israel 34.

cyllan

no taxes for anyone under 20k, and my happiness levels will jump to the roof.... see no need for surveys

Edward McLaughlin

Derek Blades

"The one thing that consistently correlates positively with happiness is an even income distribution between households."

Since income distribution has never been even between households, any consistency or correlation can only exist in the mind of a fantasist. Thanks for coming.