Posted on November - 29 - 2011
Three-quarters of Brits keep smiling through economic woes
Falling living standards and the looming return to recession has failed to dent the British public’s sunny disposition, according to the results of David Cameron’s “happiness index”.
The poll found around three-quarters of adults in the UK are satisfied with their lives despite the continuing economic gloom.
The survey of 4,200 people asked participants to rank how happy or anxious they felt on the previous day on a scale from nought to ten. Just over one in every four respondents scored seven or more out of ten for happiness. The remaining one in four felt anxious.
Seventy six percent of people were estimated to have a rating of seven out ten or more when asked “how satisfied are you with your life nowadays”. When asked, “Overall, to what extent do you think the things you do in your life are worthwhile?”, 78% of people scored seven or more out of ten.
Critics of the £2 million happiness survey have dismissed it as a staggering waste of money at a time when the country can ill afford to waste a penny.
Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, told the Daily Express: “Wasting millions of pounds on a survey that is just confirming common sense intuitions about what makes people happy isn’t going to put taxpayers in a good mood.
“The Government should focus on delivering the standard of living that we all know people want, rather than trying to pry into questions about the good life that we can and should be left to work out on our own.”
Stephen Hicks, Office for National Statistics project leader for measuring subjective well-being, said: We are drawing on a range of measures to encapsulate national well-being measures including the subjective well-being measures that we are publishing today. These are early experimental results from our opinions survey but nevertheless they give us an indication of the well-being levels within Great Britain in this case.
Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said at the launch of the index in November 2010: The so called happiness index will just be another attempt by the coalition to pull the wool over people’s eyes. No doubt Cameron will use the index to claim that despite rising unemployment, home repossessions, longer NHS waiting lists and unaffordable education, the people of this country are happier under Tory rule. The reality is a gathering gloom.
All the essential elements which make people happy and secure are fair game for the chop by this coalition government. People need a secure job, a healthy family, a good and affordable education and a roof over their heads. The coalition governments cuts are targeting these fundamental rights for millions of people.
{Photo: seanbjack}
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