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The prime minister wants to know how happy we are. But how do we measure happiness? Claire Fox asks Happy new year MJ readers. Before you all mindlessly nod an acknowledgement at my greeting, think carefully about your response. How happy? How will I know if you mean it? Can I measure it? Because, yes, the start of 2011 sees our leading political and statistical minds grappling with the Government's endeavour to assess the nation's happiness. Many have noted that the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) consultation on measuring public satisfaction is slightly mad. Like attempting ‘to nail jelly to the floor', to quote one pundit. Potential bureaucratic suicide,' according to the senior civil servant quoted in The MJ last November. Might a focus on happiness as an end devalue choices that may be discomforting – but worthwhile – such as hard work, sacrifice, struggling to better yourself and/or society? As centuries of philosophical debate have shown, happiness is neither a simple or uncontroversial concept, and measuring it is certainly challenging. RSA chief executive, Matthew Taylor, has written on his blog about the first meeting of the Measuring National Wellbeing Advisory Forum earlier in January. He notes the angst-ridden, even nerdy, exchanges relating to ‘the vagaries of measurement'. And while it is fashionable to claim that measuring happiness is a ‘new science' – Lord Richard Layard has even argued that people's self-reports on happiness show a correlation with brain scans – opinion polling on how happy one feels is inevitably subjective and unreliable. One researcher points out that ‘a survey conducted in the middle of a cold, wet January, for instance, might produce significantly gloomier results than one carried out in June'. Of course, it's easy to scoff at what pundits lampoon as counting the nation's chirpy chappies versus disgruntled Victor Meldrews. Happiness advocates know the problems. Even the prime minister agrees that, ‘You cannot capture happiness on a spreadsheet'. Yet it continues as a flagship agenda for the Government. What is going on? What is to be done with the data? PM David Cameron says the happiness index project has a practical purpose to help the Government understand ‘the evidence' to improve people's well-being. But which evidence? Lots of research shows that getting divorced makes people much happier, and they get progressively more so as years go on. I doubt this evidence is likely to be cited by the Conservatives in designing future policy. Are politicians setting criteria for wellbeing which suits their political outlook, promoting a very particular one-size fits all view of happiness and ‘the good life'? Cllr David Rogers, chair of the LGA's community wellbeing board, asserts that ‘it is vital we look at how what we do as councils affects the health and happiness of the people we represent'. But we already know that getting sacked makes people miserable. Will councils now suspend all redundancies and invest in jobs? What happens if the survey shows that cuts in welfare make the public unhappy, or if people report they feel happiest when drunk or high on drugs? At the very least, we should be wary of allowing the happiness agenda to become an apology for austerity. It is important to remember that the roots of ‘happiness economics'. It was New Labour, partly instigated by current leader, Ed Milliband, when he was in the Cabinet Office, who appointed a happiness tsar, who endlessly preached scepticism towards the benefits of prosperity. Mr Cameron agreed, famously saying in 2005: ‘It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP but GWB – general wellbeing.' Now, in a recession, we have the IDeA telling us that ‘in becoming "well-being aware", local government can "think and act differently in order to realise cost savings".' While ‘you can't buy happiness' has a – banal –truth to it, is it rather too convenient when local politicians stress that people's emotional welfare is more important than material prosperity and welfare services. Of course, if asked in a survey to choose whether our loved ones or filthy lucre makes us happier, even bankers might reject the millions. However, this treads perilously close to forcing us to publicly concede that accepting less pensions/wages/services is palatable, as long as other non-materialistic boxes are ticked. And honestly, who wants to be counted as one of the beaming-faced, happy poor? More fundamentally, are we so sure happiness should be an aim at all? British philosopher, John Stuart Mill, stated: ‘Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.' And, of course, you can be happy and ignorant, but is bovine contentment really such a worthy goal? Might a focus on happiness as an end devalue choices that may be discomforting – but worthwhile – such as hard work, sacrifice, struggling to better yourself and/or society? And perhaps discontent is an intelligent person's response to a political elite, which imagines that happy-clappy, smiley faces will be an adequate substitute for a thriving, dynamic economy. Claire Fox is director of the Institute of Ideas

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WHITEHALL

Couldn't be happier?

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