How much happiness should you expect? Are some people in some parts of the country happier? How do we know? Does it matter? Well the government thinks it does and believes happiness can be measured and compared like other measurements of well being such as health.
Armed with this information they believe government policies can be assessed to establish if they are effective in increasing our happiness.
The government is stuck in the belief that what gets measured get done and that with a little cleverness we can find ways of measuring happiness. Of course the cynics will just say this is an attempt by government to convince us that we have never been so happy despite record levels of youth unemployment, dramatic cuts to public sector services and fears for the future of the NHS.
I had hoped the government‘s obsession with measuring everything had passed but for those who still think it is a good idea here is a word of warning from the philosopher Julian Baggini “ don’t try and measure how much you love your wife”.
Blair McPherson author of UnLearning management published by www.russellhouse.co.uk
