How the pursuit of happiness could lead Britain to the right

How the pursuit of happiness could lead Britain to the right

The political mantra that the Young Turks in the Tory party live by is ‘in opposition you move to the centre, in government you move the centre’. Before the last election, they would
use the line — often a bit defensively — to justify their passive acceptance of Labour policies. But now that the Tories are in power, albeit in coalition, it has become a cry of
triumph.

After seven months in government, the Conservatives can justifiably claim to have moved the political centre ground. The coalition with the Liberal Democrats has ended the prospect of a
Labour-Liberal realignment for a generation. The Lib Dems who are serving in government have come to hate Labour with a passion. It is not political anymore — it’s personal. One senior
Tory recently became confused when a Lib Dem colleague kept saying angrily, ‘it’s what the animals want us to do’. Eventually he ventured to ask who ‘the animals’
were. The answer: Labour MPs.

Intriguingly, it is one of their most derided initiatives, the wellbeing index, that will help change the terms of debate. This ‘happiness survey’ makes some in Downing Street very
unhappy. They worry that, at a time when living standards are being squeezed, the initiative makes the government look horribly out of touch. Their great fear is that the index will show that life
isn’t better under the Conservatives, and that it will give the opposition another stick with which to beat them.

Whether Tories see the happiness index as a good or bad thing depends largely on whether they approve of Steve Hilton’s influence on the Prime Minister. Hilton, the chief strategist known for
his ‘blue-sky thinking’, has long been a controversial figure.