I’ve said several times that it would be really handy if the UK Government actually bothered to ask what to do in specialist areas instead of going their own way.
But what do they do?
They decide to ask their political cronies and the bunch of hangers-on to whom they want to give jobs, to make pathetic attempts to reinvent the wheel that has already been invented by experts.
So we have this story about the Government measuring happiness .
They’ve chucked out all the expertise developed over 25 years or so, got in a bunch of statisticians and come up with something that is clearly useless in terms of actually helping happiness.
It’s only value is as a way to try to take the pressure of the Government by diverting attention from their dismal failure in other areas. Of course that isn’t going to work because as their own blogger from Central Office says – “The whole idea that individual contentment can be measured is at best foolish and at worst intrusive”.
Of course, I’m not sure how Jill Kirby became a “Family Expert” as she’s described in the Mail article. She’s been on a lot of policy committees, but, as the people who have produced the happiness measure show, being appointed by the Tories isn’t exactly a sign of expertise. And she doesn’t seem to have any qualifications in familiy therapy etc. although she might obviously be a real expert and prefer to continue to be seen as a journalist who writes about stuff because she doesn’t want to boast of her considerable expertise.
But she sure as Hell isn’t an expert on happiness, since she’s clearly never bothered to read anything about how you can measure “individual contentment”. So it might be intrusive, but if you make it optional, I don’t see how it is, and the idea isn’t foolish at all.
It is the execution of the idea, Jill Kirby, David Cameron and all his merry band of advisors who are foolish.
Still, I suppose we voted for them – maybe. It would just be nice if, once in a while, Cameron would stop spouting platitudes that he’s one of the guys and not condescending to women, shut up, and listen. Even he might be capable of learning something, although rather doubt it. He’s just too foolish.
