AND FINALLY

With the government’s merciless cuts programme set to hit the quality of life of millions of households, you could be forgiven for thinking the ConDems didn’t care about our happiness at all. Well, David Cameron is so keen to assure us our wellbeing is close to his heart he’s starting a new programme to find out just how happy we are.

With a budget of £2million (how many NHS jobs?), the initiative will see four new questions added to the Office for National Statistics household survey. So, on a scale of 0-10:

How satisfied are you with your life? Well Dave my sicks been withdrawn even though I can’t move anything except my eyelids...but at least I’m not in Libya, so 3.

How happy did you feel yesterday? Not too hot, Dave, my landlord told me he is kicking me out to yuppify my house and charge sky-high rents but I can’t challenge it as you’ve cut legal aid for housing. 2.

How anxious did you feel yesterday? The news is full of scary stuff and my son dropped out of college as he won’t be getting EMA, so he’s gonna sell crack on the street instead. 8.

To what extent do you feel the things you do are worthwhile? I have this nagging feeling Dave, that our society is set up to allow you and your mates to strap saddles on the backs of working people and ride them into the ground - and I’m just asking myself, why bother? 2.

The first survey will go out to 200,000 people, apparently a large enough sample to iron out any ‘bias’ (like people answering while loved-up on disco biscuits or filling it in after the death of a beloved family pet). Apparently the optimum happiness level is seven or eight; you don’t want to go over that as ‘excessively’ happy people are prone to be “gullible” and make “careless” decisions. SchNEWS’ advice? Stay safe. Stay miserable.

* Stop the War (www.stopwar.org.uk) have called for a mass boycott of next month’s national census which is being run on behalf of HM Gov by arms company, Lockheed Martin. How handy for them to hold a encyclopedic demographic database of everyone in Britain, even given the ‘assurances’ they won’t ever take a peek. Honest.