Happy Talk

Simon Bullock

19 November 2010

Lord Young got into trouble this morning for claiming that Britons have "never had it so good".

Whether he's right or wrong, it's clearly important for politicians to claim that their actions are going to make life better for people - Tony Blair did it too in 1997 with "things can only get better". But how do you know if people are doing better? It's not simple.

This difficulty meant it was easy to attack Mr Cameron's launch of a wellbeing indicator this week.  Some on the left say: well-being and happiness, well they're a bit abstract and airy fairy, aren't they? Especially in a country about to be hit by the deepest cuts in a generation. Jobs - now that's a real thing to be bothered about, not this happiness rubbish. And from some on the right: happiness? Just a load of hippy nonsense that distracts us from the important job of freeing up business to deliver more growth.

And yet, there is something profoundly important in what the Prime Minister is doing. He's acknowledging the fact that - for rich countries - more economic growth has not made people happier over the past few decades, and inequality between rich and poor has increased. And pursuing economic growth (GDP) as the prime goal of society also has massive negative knock-on effects - like the huge environmental destruction from mining, refining, producing and consuming of all the products that make up modern life.

GDP is a brute and poor measure of progress.  The type of economic activity is crucial, not just its quantity.  The economy is a means to an end - better lives for people - rather than growth in its size being an end in itself. As Senator Robert Kennedy once said: "GDP measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

So Mr Cameron's launch of wellbeing measures is potentially a political leap forward. And it is no longer a fringe green idea. It's been endorsed in the last year by President Sarkozy, and Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.

The key test though will be whether measuring happiness or wellbeing will make any difference to the decisions politicians take.

We have after all been here before - in 1998 Tony Blair's Government issued "quality of life" indicators, alongside GDP, but they had little discernible impact on what the power-house ministries, particularly the Treasury, did in practice.

It's critical that the Government distinguishes between economic activity that is good for the ecosystems we all depend on, and activity that is not. A focus on wellbeing helps make that distinction, but will it be ignored by a headlong rush for economic growth at any cost?

At the moment it looks like Mr Cameron's Government is pursuing growth of any type. It's more than happy to build offshore wind farms, electric cars, public transport systems - growth which will make people better off - but it is also pursuing unabated gas-fired power stations, mass-burn incinerators and a multi-billion pound road building programme. As the United Nations called it, types of growth which wreck the climate and environment we depend on are "neither sustainable nor worth sustaining".

This must not be a one-off initiative, as in 1998. It will need strong leadership by Mr Cameron to follow it through and deliver a holy grail - economies that deliver for people and the environment. A green, low carbon strategy can deliver jobs, a protected environment and a strong economy - such a society would be much more able to claim "we've never had it so good".