The Ministry of Happiness

Richard Hall's Economics and Theology has reviewed Richard Layard's Happiness: Lessons from a New Science

I have to quote the introduction.

There was the "Making Slough Happy" series on TV recently. All Slough was up in arms about it: most of the miserable people interviewed weren't locals, community groups were ignored, some of the presenters were batty, and so on. But there was some useful economics and psychology hidden away there.

Coming from Slough, I got a lot of stick from colleagues at work over that stupid programme. I responded (to the worst offender) that any attempt to create a "Make Warrington Happy" would result in the presenters getting bottled.

The review itself makes some interesting points, but I'm not sure what to make of this:

He now argues that the promotion of happiness should be a major element of government policy.

This conjures up images of Tony Blair creating a Ministry of Happiness and forcing everyone to wear his stupid rictus grins.